notpropertyadream (1999-2021) (still trying to edit this thing)

version
notpropertyadream
07/18/2021
*excerpts
1999-2021
(c) Shannon Heather Runion/ not_property_a_dream

To become a woman is to slip into the night forever. Forgotten. The blackness between stars lingers around the hollows of lost hope. The night, a place of wonder, a place where a girl once dove into the caverns of the creative unconscious, a woman cannot go.

I know I am not plain but a monotonous orbit surrounds me. A pack of cigarettes, a growing crack on the wall, a soul of simple subjects taking on complicated roles.

I must be
an alien
reporting from within my own skin
a foreign universe again and again
intimately infinite
a gaping hole where everything ought to be yet somehow it has always been

with wings or not
taught or lost
simple and forgotten
complicated and tossed into waves
places nestled between us
and selves
unlock the answers
we find again
that patter that reminds us of a song
no matter how long the journey
we are always
unwinding the strings of familiar things
spinning out of control
creation
human celebration
do not forget how to fly

here and not
kidding but no
this is it
the big well f***ing show

a run on sentence a rip off world all of it backwards get it on camera don't feel if you do you're absurd
don't dance it's illegal don't sing you'll get shot don't breathe if it's the only breathe you've got

I have come here to write this play.  To say this thing I want to say.  To be the girl to meet the man to shift the page to give a damn.  To see the ocean to rip the tide to serve the juice to lick the ice to drift a dream to make a meme to gift a dying thing a theme... the same here or there science or music a glance or a stare a rhythm a dance an act or a day a mime or a monologue a speech or a dare.

piece together a frame
of the lost and stolen and broken
choking on time
cryptic, confusing 
to win we are losing
bruised delusional

nothing left to say
words like raw meat
pianos sound of suicide
tried to forget still they play
song of a dream that was a lie
knew it too good to be true
then why oh why is it barely a note
that can keep me on earth with you?

with the round tables rising
I'm not sure where to stand
look left, right or up
and who is holding my hand?
straight ahead is changing
look ahead with me
I am honored to invite you
can't say we'll agree
I want to change the future
we all do it is a fact?
we will blow it if we argue
but together we relax.
don't have to see what I see
but I dare you, I am cursed.
I will you to believe me
for just another verse.

Arrive there, the few that knew not who they are but how to deliver a thought from a star.
Break a model.  Cross a line.  Cross several.

leave a light on
in the labyrinth
not making it home
leave a light on
a place in mind
when I set out 
to roam
let it flicker
where to turn
when I cannot
take the trail
and am not allowed
off the path
need to know
where to look
when I can see everything
but hands are made of lead
cannot live
in this moment
or this one
already dead
please dear friend,
leave a light on
in the labyrinth
and every night
until we meet again

Oh, the characters within.

The world shrinks.  I am plagued with diminished selves and I have to create another me who can hold on to the knowledge of “at least I have created before.”   I yell at them,  “Please, stop, you are worth nothing.”


Over time, one self or two will apologize.

You request a name, yet I cannot give you only one. I have quite a few, depending on who you ask for or who your soul requests. Sometimes you are conscious of it and sometimes you aren't. Usually a mixture of the known and unknown in your waking world brings me to you. I am a member of the collective "on call "unconscious, a worldly rotating group of symbolic expression and recollection, appearing to you via nightmare or dream, or in other states of mind, awake or asleep, as a poised symbol which invokes a memory or two, and enables you to speak as your true self intends.

now is the strangest thing I know I'll never know

Nothing real and no one here. Tradition. I creep into the ether somewhere on the other side of an opening and land in his chair. I can see the world. I can even touch him there but I am not in it. I am not in any place or time in this chair. I can almost feel. I'm in the air. Breathe me in order to get a moment. Take me all the way in and I disappear into nothing, the pool of everything where all beginnings lie. And even if this is the end, I exist forever there, waiting for an opening again.

time of mind
of dreams unseen
of light and dark
and in between
of orbits and glitter
whispers and rice
a pinch of naughty
a drip of nice
time of knowing
you knew in your youth
you had the will you knew the truth
no matter the key all along
you are still singing
it's still a song

illuminate the truth
you knew in your youth
the will all along
no matter the key
is still a song
the will all along
no matter the key
is still a song

let free. let go. never land, never know

yeah, write yourself a story
send yourself a dream
pocket a moment like Peter Pan
a button, a wish, a miss
always believed in illusions
never knew they were like this

synchronicity inevitable and inappropriate
moments of time found unintended
and void of shiny things altogether
a collection of plots all over the land
people used
apocalyptic stars
already bleeding
like this

Not allowed to make noise. Fairies aren't fairies. He doesn't believe. Aliens are real but fairies are dead. As soon as someone knows where Neverland is, imagination goes poof. It's not supposed to have an exact place on the map. Not supposed to go poof.

second to the right
and straight on down the red roses
always this but not as supposing
how big is this stack of thorns
I must be poisoned
going down a road built for explosion

You know when the world keeps ending and you can no longer pretend you will find the tap shoes? They must be clean yet broken in and you won't be sick or stained or trapped someplace without even a wall to yourself. They say they can't see the shackles. But they cannot see many things.

unplaced curl, displaced girl. Sound of Music tee shirt, black. unplanned whistle around neck. one voice, many voices, stained glass window. blow girl, blow. they couldn't hear, so a different her. harder. “a little less noise, there”. maybe she could sing it, sir. once, twice, you paid, she paid your price. “it wasn't paradise”. 

can't stay clean, been so dirty, decided once to face world in a hurry. stage a failure, a dream. hello intuition. something was supposed to fall and it did. hello nursery window. you won't forget to come for me! he always does. 

the children don’t always clap for the fairies. never underestimate the power of a (Christopher Durang) monologue. 

heavy breathing, re conceiving. failure failure failure. listen to me. have your wish.

the ships 
the bell 
hollow people alive and well 
labyrinth, lions, shadows, courage, explore 
one eye on window one on door 
lost boys in secret had come before 
listen to story, be mother, adore 
one eye on the window and one on the door

only to make a noise 
now completely open yet totally broken 
everything is shhhh 
so much left unspoken 
are you joking 

when I remember I once knew the notes to sing 
I cannot remember mostly everything 
except for the way I know it made me feel 
to lose while letting go 
and somehow exhale my way back to a do 
sometimes moved, sometimes fixed so that it's name doesn't resemble a root at all

do angels dress in duct tape 
electric cherry dead 
sticky flattened feathers smashed upon His bed? 
then I am your angel 
tape across my face 
wrap me tighter, tighter 
save my undead grace 
hang our dreams together 
alone we cannot solve 
for what our soul may weather 
the future yet evolves 

She fell far and fast into her projects, unable to distinguish herself from the subjects she studied, including other paralyzed or paranoid parts of her self, all pregnant with multiple projects of their own. 

haven't slept since nineteen ninety nine 
the world is f***ed and the rest isn't far behind  

join us for a paradigm 
stay awhile for the play 
journey up, the rocket's ready 
we're gonna ride through another day 
twisted, our minds our fractured 
implants, our skulls are loose 
trust is something you re learn 
when you find the world has gone obtuse 
where do you go that's higher than a kite 
and nearer than Neverland 
where is it that Poppins didn't know 
and Peter never had planned 

the answer is closer like clicking your heels 
following the ocean to the stream 
over the rainbow 
even in the woods 
all you have to do is dream 

sing through the night 
I used to 
did I have at least one song 
how dare you walk right into it 
make me stop singing Gloria, Gloria 

stop the heavens from hallucination 
of who I could have been 
had I not given in to manipulation 
of strings weaving wings 
into things that fly 
not die with each try 
and if I shall crash like this 
a little more with each kiss 
may each note untangled 
see you strangled
on the floor

forgetting how to fly really is a thing 

She became a permanent player wherever and whenever she fell, continuing to play forever there. A very dedicated performer, forever was destined to take a long time. She had started so many valuable projects. Each of them individually simple as a young soul yet simultaneously askew, a combination of creations only truly displaced creators would ever understand, yet so intense even displaced creators would rather not know for why be entertained by one's own cap on creativity

the plan for truth as fiction
communicating life we're ditching
girls around with buns on head
already dead
point your toe a little further
iron a curtsy in place
don't be caught singing for yourself
when there's a whole half human race

Un write expectations.
Any one truth can open a door.
Learn to see the story. 

doesn’t matter if it’s black or white,
checkered, stripes,
flannel, frisky, furious,
naive, miscellaneous,
strange, stupid, schizo, stripper,
classified, crazy, deranged,
secure, falling, failing, familiar,
forgotten, forbidden, forewarned,
fishnets, flip flops, fingers,
storm, faces, pages, places,
lost, lipstick, liquor,
his crusty socks across your sacred space.
my dear unidentified being,
get out before you smash in your face

archived spaces
human races
planned
think but you have never landed
want to finish but there is no complete
to be okay for maybe just a week
but no such thing as I am here
and I am done
at the same time as I have begun
and I have won

(... to be continued...) -S.