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bansheemilktales · 10 months
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my future love
Things I deserve in a future partner:
A love that enjoys laughing til her sides hurt.
A love that thinks it's cute that I'm short and doesn't judge me negatively for it.
A love that is loyal and kind.
A love that will (occasionally) put me first. Not always of course but when I'm having a harder day than her.
A love that can tolerate the occasional mistake without calling me names.
A love that enjoys looking at my art once in a while.
A love that loves me as I am but is okay with me trying to better myself sometimes too.
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bansheemilktales · 1 year
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R.I.P. Big Dog
     I won't miss the big dog but I am sorry he died.
      Without naming him many of you will know who I'm speaking of. He and I had a few very pleasant moments like when we realized we both fell in love with Bjork on the same day (when The Sugarcubes hosted SNL on October 18th, 1988).  We shared some drinks, some laughs, a love of comic books and our politics were very close to being identical.      But the first time I met him I was 23 years old at a poetry reading and I accidentally bumped into a table loudly while someone was reading. The Big Dog gave me a look that said "Die, you piece of shit."      I immediately apologized and took responsibility as I sat down quietly.       Soon I began began reading my poems to audiences which resulted in him talking shit and saying "Comedy Is Easy" (of course it isn't as proven by the amount of serious actor, poets, writers vs comedians....we have a lot more people in the De Niro camp than we do in the Jack Black camp.) You can't just say "Chinchilla Hips" and be a funny guy. It takes a little more.      Then out of nowhere in 2003 I entered a championship for shits and giggles and to my suprise I won. I was the Albuquerque City Champ in poetry  that year with The Big Dog coming in 2nd which made him really mad. He told loads of people in our shared community that I only won cuz I was good looking (debatable) and that my poetry was cliched. I told him since I beat him his poems must be "Less Than Cliche" which really angered him. But I didn't give a shit. He started it and had picked on me the last 6 years for no reason and I wasn't having it.      At the risk of sounding cocky I kept winning. It was something like 3 city championships in a row plus 2 Haiku city championships. I can't rmember details but this was not the accomplishment it sounds like. It quickly stopped being fun as my competitors would not grow or challenge themselves creatively. It was like beating Pauly Shore in acting competitions. To his credit he admitted he found me frustrating because while he was far more recognized nationally he could rarely if ever beat me.      After 20 years he continued to fuck with me right here on FB (as recently as a few months ago calling my friends racist when none of them had even discussed race) and now that he died loads of people are remembering him fondly. Many of them are just doing it to be a part of something. This behavior grosses me out even though I am sort of doing it right now. But I don't want to be a part of that world anymore as proven by the fact I have not read a poem in public or attended a show since 2008 (even when offered money to do so).      Of course some of the love being spouted for The Big Dog is 100% genuine for some and I am glad that they had a healthy relationship with him. Sadly this was not my experience.      When we met he was a middle aged man who was picking on a young man. Plain & simple. 20 years later and I had become the middle aged man and he, an old man, continued to harass me on here (but not in DMs cuz he was a master at Virtue Signaling and wanted "to be seen being the ultimate ally")      That's what I hated about Slam Poetry. Even though I am a stone cold liberal and about as far left as a human can be, it was not about poetry at all. If it had been there would be a variety of stuff. Evil right wing poems would be welcomed (technically it would be possible for an asshole to be a good writer). So it was about agreeing which means it was a social circle, not an art community.      I've been happier since I went back to my first loves of comedy & art. But it always hurt that this guy who I went out of my way to be friends with for years wouldn't stop fucking with me.       That said, I never ever wanted him dead. And now he is. And it sucks. #BansheeMilkFACTS     
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bansheemilktales · 2 years
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My Feelings About Modern Superhero Movies
As a little kid my passion for comic books got me teased a lot. If you can think of a mean name I was probably addressed by it. The most common were gay slurs. I have no issue with gay people, in fact, I'm usually rather fond of them but it still hurt that people wanted to hurt me. The experience always left me feeling angry and alone. Militantly defensive of the artform I enjoyed. Even as a young boy I could easily go off on a long speech about how comics were great and those who judged then unfairly were awful.
Now that I'm 46 years old superhero movies are all the rage. But after I watch one, I would venture to say that more than half of them leave me feeling angry and alone. I specify "superhero movies". I don't call them comic book movies because they rarely have the qualities I admire about comic books. I wasn't that into the explosions and punches and when I do want to see punches or explosions they entertain me more when they are physical rather than CGI. I like my movies filmed instead of computer generated (stunts are great too).
What I loved about comics was the same thing I loved about the films of David Lynch, John Waters & Tim Burton. They could be a window into an unusual character's head. Sometimes movies habe nailed it like 'Ghost World', 'American Splendor', 'Sin City' and 'Road To Perdition'. In my experience, if you read a good comic book you will often notice they are stories told in the first person so the hero tells you what they are thinking. I remember a passage where Wolverine thought to himself "It feels like there is too much blood in my body". There was a passage in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in which Batman weighs the options of how to take a criminal down. One kills, a couple of them will leave the crook with permanent injuries and he says "the other one.....hurts" and he kicks the bad guy in dramatic fashion. And most importantly when I read a comic book I get to look at great artwork.
I just finished watching the new movie 'Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness' and I find myself feeling angry and alone again just like when I was a kid. Everybody loves these movies and I am once again made to feel less than when I don't. It seems like adults are experiencing now what I did as a child. They seem to feel very defensive of these movies the way I did with comics. Online I will get called a name when I don't like a superhero movie (admittedly I have enjoyed the occasional one but it has been a while).
On the subject of the new Doctor Strange, Benedict Cumberbatch is a great actor but he does not get to show us this when he plays this character. It is so much boring exposition like "We have to get to the thing or the universe will Bla Bla Bla". I say Good. Let the universe blow up. That would be different.
If you saw Sherlock Holmes starring RDJ there is great internal dialogue. But usually actors overdo it for the 2 lines they have until they are bombarded with enough CG that it no longer even looks like a movie. These things look like videogames. Maybe I'm just an old guy, but Doctor Strange has a distracting helmet instead of hair (I don't see why they can't just use Cumberbatches hair). And his cape is even more distracting since occasionally it comes to life in order to do something stupid like catch someone. And remember when you were hoping to see a zombie give a kid an inspirational speech? Me neither.
What is wrong with comic books? Why do most people have zero interest in reading them? Do people hate seeing amazing drawings? Do they hate imagining what a character's voice is like or knowing what they are thinking? Why is it that America has virtually no interest in them unless it is to see them badly translated to the silver screen?
If this ever gets a lot of readers I imagine people will get angry with me for talking shit about these movies. I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. If you enjoy them that's great. I am happy for you. But if so, why are they better to you than reading comics?
I know that getting worked up over this stuff will get me ridiculed but that's what being a nerd is.
I can easily get mad that Wolverine isn't short in the movies. That Batman is always portrayed as a slow armored guy instead of a guy in tights who dodges bullets. Everyone nowadays says they're a nerd but I don't know if they are. I think maybe they are still followers like they were in school. Only now superheroes are the trend whereas when I was a kid they were a way to buck trends.
So tonight I guess I have to feel angry and alone for a little while.
My heart still wants to give my sad inner child a hug and hope that he doesn't mind hugging an old guy who feels the same way.
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bansheemilktales · 2 years
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It is so much better to be a big guy. I swear to you. If you hear nothing else I say. The smaller man doesn't matter here. We are shit.
I don't wanna be here anymore.
In a world where reality stars assault women and become president what matters? Women who merely have a big ass get to host SNL while comedians are told they shouldn't joke.
I don't wanna be here anymore.
God is a concept to excuse murdering a doctor trying to help young women. In a world where we hate each other if we disagree about who the best Batman is what matters? Feelings can't be hurt cuz that's wrong but you can shoot a kid in the street. That's just fine.
I don't wanna be here anymore.
Religion has killed more people than cancer but we try to cure cancer. Consequential art with profound emotion sewn into every line is ignored in favor of people who can throw a ball far. In a world where the only American Idols are people born with strong vocal cords who will be the next scientist? What is to be done with the little person who tries really hard to be more than he was given at birth?
I don't wanna be here anymore.
We are arguing about what is worse, a bad joke or a criminal assault. We are wearing shirts of bands we don't listen to, wearing smiles for people we don't love and oir patience with each other is wearing thin.
I don't wanna be here anymore.
I am too small to be seen. Too old to be relevant and too young to be respected. I fall in love too easily and I hate it. In a world where tall is better than nice and handsome is better than talented there is little to no hope for the weirdo. The kid hiding in the corner of the class drawing little monsters and hoping just once to be somebody's favorite person.
In a world where it's all just a big fucking joke and the only response to a joke is violence what matters anymore? I was dirt and will be dirt again. I was born of people who couldn't love. I was born unwanted and stayed that way. My smile is creepy. My way of flirting frightened people away and for good reason. I was a radio playing music but when you go to unplug it you see it was never plugged in. Just a cold and empty machine with romantic platitudes that amounted to nothing. Incapable of being a good man. Wrong about everything. I don't wanna be here anymore.
Sartre said "Hell is other people."
He was wrong. It's not in the other. It's in the self. It is right here. Inside. Everyday.
Hell is present. Put on your pants. Get up. Go to Hell. Everyday. I don't wanna be here.
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bansheemilktales · 2 years
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You know how if a werewolf cuts you with his claws you become a werewolf? I wonder if it just barely scratched you a little if you'd be okay. But maybe you'd grow a beard everytime the moon was full. #BansheeMilkFACTS
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bansheemilktales · 2 years
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It's hard for me to share but here we go. This is me with my older brothers. Darrin (who passed away one year ago today and whose birthday is tomorrow) is on the left. Richard is on the right. I am the tall drink of water in the center (I know I don't look like an actual glass of water but I had tests done and it turns out I am pure H20) Darrin was given up for adoption in 1969 and this pic was taken the day we met him in person around 2000 or 2001. Richard and I were raised together. Mom searched for Darrin for a long time (she didn't name him so it was hard without knowing his name). On the day we found his contact info Mom asked me to talk to him on the phone because she was afraid he wouldn't want to speak with her. The voice on the other end of the phone was that of a familiar stranger. He sounded like Richard but with a slightly more cowboy affectation. When it was time to meet, my mom asked me to tone down my weirdness lest it drive him away (Don't ask this of your kids). I did my best to include myself but it is hard. I am the black sheep of the family who paints monsters and Tacos and wears dresses and makeup on occasion. So I tried to appease Mom and wore the polo shirt you see above. It might be the only time I tucked in my shirt too. Anyway, Darrin is gone. I miss what we never managed to have. Happy Birthday, Bro. #BansheeMilkFACTS
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bansheemilktales · 2 years
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I had heard a story in my family as a young boy and quickly forgot it until circumstances in my family caused me to remember it a short time ago. When my Uncle Karl (my Mom's brother) was a little boy he saw a movie with a then young Harry Belefonte in it and he yelled "DADDY" and everyone in the theater laughed. But many were stunned to see my Grandpa John's resemblance to Belefonte in the light of day. It was pretty uncanny. His middle name was Henry and when my Mom was little she had a book about John Henry, the steel driving man, and she thought it was about her daddy cuz the illustrations were of a strong dark man. My grandpa was an orphan and adopted by my great grandma Toni. He grew to become a science teacher at my old high school but retired before I went there. A few years back I got my Ancestry tested and learned I am part African. This coupled with my Grandpa's death made me remember that story and then when my Mom died one of my jobs was to sort through old family photos dating back to the early 1900's. I am still sorting a year later. Indeed Grandpa John looked as though he could have been a stunt double for Harry Belefonte. He was in the navy and was known for being strong as Hell and dark skinned. Sometimes the "N Word" was thrown at him which usually resulted in someone getting their lights knocked out. But he was a good man and a one Hell of a carpenter. For some reason it never occurred to us that he was black or that we were part black. He was just Grandpa. Grandpa who used to teach us how to use tools. Grandpa who used to put is in the back of his pick up and drive hard over bumps so we would bounce (probably not a good idea in retrospect but it was fun). Grandpa who used to take us to swim in the ditches (probably not a good idea in retrospect but it was fun). He had a rugged "Jack Palance" quality and loved working with his hands. When I was about 12 yrs old I went to the movies and saw Beetlejuice and felt an immediate connection to the ghost with the most. It cracked me up when he made the guests dance against their will to The Banana Boat Song and I quickly mastered a Michael Keaton impression. Grandpa didn't laugh much but I am proud to say I knew how to make him laugh. I thought I'd tell you guys this story. When I learned only a few short years ago of my ancestry I was shocked but in a good way. While I have never fully understood human pride over one's bloodline or race as it is an accident of birth and not exactly a grand accomplishment that one aims for I was really happy to know that I was a small part of some cultures whose music and art have meant so much to me. I'm a white, black, mexican, asian guy and it's pretty cool. #BansheeMilkFACTS
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bansheemilktales · 2 years
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Some people restore their old cars themselves, right in their own garages or backyards. Personal restoration requires lots of time, good work space, and skilled handwork. Special shops can assist the owner with the more difficult parts of the job just as an orphan may go to a frightening elder in the stately eating room and ask "May I have some more" only to be rebuffed and beaten by said elder. Often mechanics will tell you to love the car you repair but that is gross and many of us lack sexual courage. There are even some shops that can do the whole restoration job from the chassis up. Most owners prefer not to leave the entire restoration job up to a shop, however. They find the greatest satisfaction in being able to say, "To Hell with with you all, you unkempt bastards....I did it myself." And who among us can blame them? In my twilight years for example, I find myself turning on the television with my own bare hands, lifting the remote with little to no regard for my own personal safety and choosing the program that best suits a man of my dire interests. Will it be a show on automotive restoration, a detective yarn in which the hero enjoys many late night rendezvous with his secretary or perhaps my own home video recording of the myraids ways that I have dismembered a local townie whose only gift to this world was correcting me on the pronounciation of one Claude Monet? Is it Mon-ETT or Moan-Ay? Historians agree we may never know but that said, a man will kill while another will die. But I digress, there are two kinds of restoration projects, depending on the amount of care the car needs. If the car runs reasonably well, then perhaps only "cosmetic restoration" will be needed. Reupholstering and repainting may be required but a vintage car is still a vintage car and a vintage wife is a vintage wife. Sleeping soundly in her storage unit one has only the tyrrany of memory to recall her requests. "Stop putting paint and upholster on me" she might scream. But love is not a car as much as we all wish it were. Perhaps if this world worked correctly instead of the decaying marble of grey doom that it remains, we would learn that The Beatles songs "Drive My Car" and "Can't Buy Me Love" were in the same shared universe much like Marvel movies and they could maybe cameo within their respective lyrics and traverse a computer generated backdrop all the while punching each other with all the ferocity of a wild orphan porridgeless and alone. The second kind of restoration is called "complete restoration" and will be necessary if the car cannot run at all, if many of it's parts are covered in turkey gravy or missing entirely. And what if the car's condition is generally a mess? Needless to say this means more work will be needed and magical powers wouldn't hurt. They would only serve the owner in ways they he (or she) never dreamed possible. You want your car to speak or have unicorn wings? Magical powers may be the only solution left at this juncture and I encourage their use. Life is too short to dirty one's hands on a car that keeps insisting on being stupid and unmagical. That's right. I said "Unmagical". I made it up. All the great authors make up a word now and then and I am no different. I am well rooted in my sameness and normal to the bone. Let this piece on automotive repair be named the first to feature the word "unmagical" and if I am wrong and this word already exists in someone else's writing let God himself crash down upon that writer with tremendous blows of lightning and hatred. Let all who witness his wrath know of nothing more as their eyes glass over white and their mouths slowly grow slack with morbidity and their futures be nothing more than a drive on an endless road in a car nobody bothered to love.
written by Michael (Tony) Santiago @ BansheeMilk December 17th, 2021
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bansheemilktales · 2 years
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I cannot be certain I am not dying. It feels like it. My soul is just......cold and alone.
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bansheemilktales · 3 years
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"My Death Bed"
By Michael Anthony Santiago
My death bed had been waiting for me. But not for as long as a man hopes. It was comfortable as death beds go. But still, I couldn't help but suffer from a touch of what Mom called "Buyer's remorse".
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bansheemilktales · 3 years
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Sometimes I start writing a short story and after one or two sentences (or just half a sentence) I stop because I feel it is good as is. Here are a few examples:
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1) Honk had a name that was so good it sounded best from a car horn.
2) I never had an antelope I could trust.
3) Typing this from my jail cell and still running for president, I decided if Margaret were a typewriter each peck would be sexual harassment......
4) I felt like saying "No grandma, I don't want anymore ham" but who would listen?
5) Looking deep into the ghost of Peter Jennings eyes I thought "These things are so small I can't tell if he is looking back at me...."
6) She was the kind of girl whose gaze could turn your bones into chords that could only be played by an Arch Angel's harp...
7).....I should start off by saying I didn't want any of this. Well maybe the basket of corn chips. And the harmonica. But that's it.
8) That was 1980 for you. Smelly and cold. Like a dead Harvick. What's a Harvick? I'll get to that.
9) It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Of course, I was bipolar.
10) Mom had eyes on the back of her head. Covered by hair one could argue they were as useless as nipples on a "henwr", which is the welsh word for man.
11) The commercial lied. Beef wasn't what was for dinner. It was Gary. The guy who made fun of us for being stupid cannibals.
12) Women from a distance bear very man's sexual desires in mind when they get dressed.
13) Dear Helga, I wrote, things are rough and frightening during wartime but I still hate your name. There, I said it.
14) No man ever gave a shit I bet. Not the ones who told me they loved me and not the ones who told me they had a basket of excrement and were willing to give it away to anyone in need.
15) His was a mustache forged in steel which God decided had been a mistake. He would have to start all over again from scratch.
16) I don't like humans. They're not my kind of people.
17) Was Jesus as good as they say? Maybe. But not at pool. He should've stopped trying to hustle people the first night we lost. But somebody had put it in his mind that he could do anything.
18) I decided I'd like to be a short story writer. But how short? 4'11? 4'8? And would it effect the quality of my stories? Only time would tell.
19) Mark always told dirty jokes at the dinner table but only I could hear them. Nobody else was tuned into the frequency of weird, stupid Mark.
20) I hated Bryce more than I hated brussel sprouts. Well, half as much. No wait, a little more than half. Shit, we're never gonna get anywhere if I don't decide the ratio in comparing my Bryce to sprouts hatred.
21) It was the longest stakeout either of us had been on. Sgt Buchanan and I had grown long white beards. One might even call our beards gross. And our car was so old it wasn't a car but a chariot. Neither of us could remember who we were supposed to be watching in the stakeout. No matter. They were probably dead by now. Dead and buried. Well maybe not buried. God. I assume too much.
22) Jim used to hem and haw. "Maybe don't," I said, "Who likes to haw anymore? Why, in all my days I never knew a woman who was like 'I really want a man who can Haw.' Nope. They wanted cash money. And muscles. And a recipe for hot soup."
23) CORN DOG. Those were grandma's dying words. I shouldn't have rolled my eyes but who says that on their death bed? Stupid whore. I'm glad she's dead.
24) You can't judge a zebra by it's stripes. But I can. And I'm going public with my power in three, two, one.....Let the stripe judging begin.
25) I didn't want to hi-five my friends anymore. I had a bad shoulder and they seemed to think it was the only way to show excitement. How about just say "How exciting" or better yet, bury your feelings deep within and never allow excitement to surface choosing instead a life of depression and indifference.
25) "You have a nice ass," I said. "Where did you get it?"
"At the ass store," she said, "Where else?"
"Well, Gary got his on the black market," I answered.
"Whose Gary?" she said.
"I don't know," I replied, "Some dog probably. Hard to say cuz this story is over."
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bansheemilktales · 3 years
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Where I'm From.....
written by Michael Anthony Santiago @BansheeMilk
It would be a thing so great if I could tell you I rarely heard a panicked scream when I picked something up outside. But with the best of intentions, Mom would let out a wail that could rip a hole in the fabric of time. She feared the unknown and for this reason perhaps having a child in mid-70s San Francisco when the Unabomber was leaving bombs in envelopes and boxes wasn’t the best of ideas. She knew my Dad for 4 days when they decided to get married and shortly after they created a person, which apparently is what I am. At this time the Zodiac Killer was also wreaking his own brand of havoc in San Francisco and the wonderful Harvey Milk was stirring up necessary controversies that forced some to ask themselves how they saw the world. It was suggested to me by a character that I wrote that the places and times we are born into may paint who we are to some extent. Now I didn’t grow up to be a gay man (which would be fine if I had) or a serial killer (considerably less fine if I had). But the possibility is an interesting one. What if birth is less about guaranteeing a child gets the three R’s and more of real estate i.e. “Location, location, location”? Just as Dad’s leather belt regularly gave me welts that tattooed the words ‘Fear’ & 'Rage’ in braille upon my skin, so too, would San Francisco leave it’s mark on me I suppose. When, at the age of 5, my folks moved me to Albuquerque New Mexico, I remember the other kids would tell me I came from the land of fruits and nuts and would ask me which one I was, but I didn’t really understand what these slurs meant. “Well, there are a lot of serial killers and gay people right now in San Francisco.” Is this why my parents left? No. We came here so Mom could be closer to her family. Yet, upon arriving here, she never stopped freaking out when I would pick something up. It made me nervous and it was like the Unabomber was everywhere leaving explosives in my meatloaf, which I could not be trusted to cut, in my head, which I could be trusted to listen to, in my heart, which I could not be trusted to break. She would become distressed if I put on her clothes but not as much as Dad, who knew for certain this would ruin me. I was protected from my life to the extent that I could not live it fully. Something I am trying to forgive in my advancing years as I recall where it is I come from. I come from strangers who thought they fell in love on a blind date and knew what was best for everyone despite a complete lack of education and life experience. I come from the fear of serial killers and gay men in a city and time that was unfairly equating the two. I come from a ball sac attached to a misogynistic upbringing. I come from a birth canal that was raped for most of it’s childhood. I come from accident and violent intent. From humble origins and hated arrivals. The things I have picked up in my adult life have continued to disappoint my elders. What if it all blows up? What if it is all a code that means I am crazy? What if it all results in more dresses and make-up? I am the family eccentric. I see everything upside down to them. And they will never stand on their head to see the totality of life with me. It would be such a beautiful thing if I could tell you I didn’t hear a panicked banshee’s scream every time I picked something up. But it is stuck in my head. It is trapped in me and I am trapped in it. But I shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be. It is as though I am a small bundle of chemicals and nails packaged carefully by those who made me and left me in the middle of the road without a thought. written by Michael Anthony Santiago @BansheeMilk If you liked this, please donate $1 a month to my Patreon page called BansheeMilk.
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bansheemilktales · 3 years
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I don’t feel the same as I used to. I’ve always had depression but this time is different. I don’t see the worth in me anymore. Or the potential for this world.
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bansheemilktales · 4 years
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The End could be so beautiful
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bansheemilktales · 4 years
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My artwork
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bansheemilktales · 4 years
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Me….I am BansheeMilk
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bansheemilktales · 5 years
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I don't feel the same as I used to. I've always had depression but this time is different. I don't see the worth in me anymore. Or the potential for this world.
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