Rubén Sebastián Muñiz | ∞

Know that you did your best, and it showed.

The love by your side is what grounds you, she is your earth;

how else could you rediscover these roots and water the tallest trees while planting new seeds?

El jardinero – you did your part, and more.

Think of yourself less as the bridge – a hard, flat, steel, man made vessel that gets run over in both directions.

Think more of yourself as the garden and the gardener, cultivating your growth, and the growth of those around you, just the same.

– RSM

It’s a chemically engineered substance intended to ‘hold back the dam,’

with these damn chemicals that build up in your body and brain

to prevent other ones building up in your body and brain.

In circles we go, to obtain these little circles that are meant to

quell the rapid cycles that spiral within the mind,

and ’round these parts, you better have some funds flowing

to keep up with the up-keep and keep this dam damn flowing..

Sometimes it feels like a maze that keeps changing.

Make all the right turns, and you’re left back at square one, gazing –

into the void, with an old, folded, yellowed hydro-electrical manual,

and the poor foreman is expected to fix all the innerworkings,

but the methods and materials keep changing, re-arranging

the arrangement made on how to maintain the body and brain.

Trying to read the manual, the foreman gets lost in words that repeat, repeatedly

as these treacherous whirlpools pool words into destructive spirals with infinite curves:

“We have the best tools for hydro-electric concrete retention, pushing back on the water’s natural forces and pressures of the body of water it holds back, to regulate hydro-static pressure…” 

Word soup boils hot while the dam cracks, but doesn’t break,

for the consequences are just too great for it to take; given, say,  another sudden earthquake.

The dam bares it all with repairs to the walls.

As another new expensive method starts at phase one,

and the foreman begins to question whether any of these new materials help at all.

Maybe it’s all just in the foreman’s head? The dam might be holding up fine, instead –

but the thing is, I’m the foreman in the walls, making sure the water goes,

and whenever it feels like walls are closing in or ‘the veil is thin,’

it feels like another referendum on the synthetic circles, these,

things that-are-supposed-to-combat ‘rapid cycling,’ or ‘feelings of worthlessness.’

But what does the foreman know? The dam walls are concrete, but sometimes feel hallow.

Nevertheless, I refer to the dam’s manual to make sure it all-flows. – RSM

Brother Zachariah wakes up in a cold sweat –

the roosters are like sirens, reminding all of the men to get started by rudely breaking the dawn’s silence,

they tighten their robes and grab their farming tools, and toil

along as another early morning’s aches are assuaged by the birds in the trees’ sweet songs.

Life moves around him, but he’s locked in, focused on his tasks, in a circle so tight

that he makes four left turns to make sure he knows which way is still right;

A sight seen on repeat, he works on the land, plowing the same fields

day in, day out, as patient as he can appear while his mind dreads his daily deeds.

Bro-Zac’s workload doubled when the friars added it on, they noticed that his usual load was no longer fitting.

The other men notice that he’s a little less witty, seems a little less willing,

but still prays the loudest, most intensely, knowing he’s not back in the village making a killing,

but trying to do the right thing; doing what he understands as ‘the Lord’s bidding.’

The cold sweat compounds with the heat by midday, and he has to finish counting

all the seeds he’s planted, keeps notes on the crops growing;

the friars tell him to “Add ‘er all up!” when it comes to his work, and until the moon’s glowing

he’s taking his time to harness his troubled mind, making sure he has the right numbers of his seeds planted all in line,

while reminding himself to rest when he has the time.

Under the full moon’s dusk the crops grow – surely, slowly, tall, nourished, and bold;

and with each night that Zachariah sleeps, he doesn’t realize he’s also nourishing his soul. – RSM

Critics claim I’m ‘creatively bankrupt,’ but I got mad mental guap under my Uncle Tony’s mattress

I dig a few bills out, write what’s on my mind, and pray that my prey still thinks I don’t have shit,

I got multiple mind-cores from the ceiling to the floor, third eye disguised, I let you think I’m a halfwit

but I’m emptying banana clips into this rough draft, I’m tuff with the craft, which –

I’ve been proactively practicing since-I-was-a-damn-kid;

I’m on chapter eleven but my credit is untouchable

I ruffle feathers like windy weather while my words go out and hunt for you,

my writtens got you smitten, these scales are always tipping

with my heavyweight phrasiesz,

I’ll put you in a daze for several days until you’re pushing daises, I’m

ur flow wolf, Ru; reverse-unorthodox, my words give birth to pregnant ladies –

In my world: all the shoes wear socks, workers know their worth, and creatives aren’t written off as ‘crazy,’

The best people are bonkers, bro, I’ll bet mad hats on it,

my rhymes’ll black swan your whole dance hall and grind you all the way down

while scoring 100 easy on your most difficult scantron –

my creative currency is off the books, just crypto-palabras

put your mind on a rollercoaster, drain your brain like a hungry chupacabra;

Volume’s on Eleven, even Jane Hopper couldn’t help you,

I’ll let your mind catch up, before my words melt you. – RSM