I would like to acknowledge those who inspired me to pick up a pen and create sound, a voice. Prince Rogers Nelson, who truly needs no introduction, was a genius in the eyes of millions. Consider "Purple Rain," what an abstract concept of reality. Let's just look at the title of the band, "The Revolution", What a powerful message. -I wanted to be just like him. Prince's "Controversy" album cover had the name Joni Mitchell on it. In the late 80's, we did not have Google. I had to know who she was. No one close to me knew. After a few years went by, I came to know she was a white singer, songwriter, and AMAZING. I went and bought all the albums I could find. My favorite album of hers is called "Court in Sparks'. She taught me I didn't have to be a painter to color the world, I could color with my words, vibrant hues, wild, and free. I've always been otherworldly, a bit of a transcendentalist, even as a child. The other children would make fun of me and most of them would call me a witch. Now that I'm all grown up, I see they were right. I am truly magical, especially with a pen in my hand. Poetry is the process of transformation for the one writing it. As I write, I encourage myself to look at everything in life as a constant change. I've enjoyed the ride on my own brain waves that inspire thought provoking concepts as I fall freely into the universe of imagination. After twenty years as a writer, I finally feel my time and effort is going to pay off. I am stepping out, taking a leap of faith in the title "Black Cocaine and Colorless Butterflies". Please understand, I am not promoting the use of cocaine. I am speaking figuratively about the black struggle I witnessed growing up in a poor, black, crack-cocaine drug infested community. Cocaine did not originate where I lived. The people outside of my community had to bring it there. We all have our demons and our struggles individually and collectively. The community needed a major transformation. I wanted to be a part of the transformation. I needed to see the drugs removed once and for all. I longed for the community to shed the weight of the black struggles and generational curses that plagued us. I was ready for us to morph into the butterflies we were meant to be as a collective, void of color. Poetry is my offering; it is my contribution to society.

Following the well-received first edition, the Drug Abuse Handbook, Second Edition is a thorough compendium of the knowledge of the pharmacological, medical, and legal aspects of drugs. The book examines criminalistics, pathology, pharmacokinetics, neurochemistry, treatment, as well as drugs and drug testing in the workplace and in sports, and the

Slum beautiful is a remarkable, straight forward, poetic and eye stretching memoir of KyDeja Morgan’s (Slum Beautiful) struggling life. In her first 28 years of life she was molested, practiced blasphemous acts, robbed, sold drugs, used drugs, prostituted, and arrested and almost prosecuted for the murders of both her mother and brother. Like her other siblings, Slum was raised in a dysfunctional family that practiced open sex, used drugs, gambled and treated their home as a hangout for other addicts. Through her avowed journey in life, it would take Slum 28 years and 11 months, along with becoming homeless to find the beauty in her slum (mind, body, soul and surroundings.) she was able to connect, dig out and remove some of the most scattered and unraveling moments of her life thanks to the acts of soliloquy, prison and an unlikely fallen angel along the way. However, before Slum could share her newly found beauty she has to beat a slew of charges, including breaking and entering, robbery, murder-and come fourth with secrets that inadvertently prolonged her vicious life cycle. Slum Beautiful- in retrospect not only visits the most dangerous place on earth in our heart’s memory, but gives a mind-boggling, touch of retrograde amnesia exploring the inducement of dysfunction in Slum’s family that includes, molestation, sibling rivalry, systematic dependency, drug dependency, self hate, cultural hate, racism, and women and child abuse. Slum Beautiful explores how cycles of injustice begin, and how they can continue to plague without culminating. Penned with a poetic pen, conscience mind, and honest heart, Slum beautiful is the Pangaea of life before the evolution of such disheartening events, and then some. It is an internal reflection of yours and mine. Find your beauty, before the wrong hands do. Without further do, Kenny Attaway presents Slum Beautiful: the soliloquy of the kandy lady.

From the renowned neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author of Incognito comes the companion volume to the international PBS series about how your life shapes your brain, and how your brain shapes your life. "An ideal introduction to how biology generates the mind.... Clear, engaging and thought-provoking." —Nature Locked in the silence and darkness of your skull, your brain fashions the rich narratives of your reality and your identity. Join renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman for a journey into the questions at the mysterious heart of our existence. What is reality? Who are “you”? How do you make decisions? Why does your brain need other people? How is technology poised to change what it means to be human? In the course of his investigations, Eagleman guides us through the world of extreme sports, criminal justice, facial expressions, genocide, brain surgery, gut feelings, robotics, and the search for immortality. Strap in for a whistle-stop tour into the inner cosmos. In the infinitely dense tangle of billions of brain cells and their trillions of connections, something emerges that you might not have expected to see in there: you. Color illustrations throughout.

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters? The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. The Disappearing Spoon masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery -- from the Big Bang through the end of time. Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.

Initially, Nardi de Saint Vallier, a disillusioned young Frenchman who has abandoned his passion for sculpting, thinks Hannah Van Evan is merely a naive young American, but during a summer in Normandy, he is won over by her spirit. Original.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 An electrifying first collection from one of the most exciting short story writers of our time "I can’t recall the last time I laughed this hard at a book. Simultaneously, I’m shocked and scandalized. She’s brilliant, this young woman."—David Sedaris Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel Eileen was one of the literary events of 2015. Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. But as many critics noted, Moshfegh is particularly held in awe for her short stories. Homesick for Another World is the rare case where an author's short story collection is if anything more anticipated than her novel. And for good reason. There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful, and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities. Homesick for Another World is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition. But part of the unique quality of her voice, the echt Moshfeghian experience, is the way the grotesque and the outrageous are infused with tenderness and compassion. Moshfegh is our Flannery O'Connor, and Homesick for Another World is her Everything That Rises Must Converge or A Good Man is Hard to Find. The flesh is weak; the timber is crooked; people are cruel to each other, and stupid, and hurtful. But beauty comes from strange sources. And the dark energy surging through these stories is powerfully invigorating. We're in the hands of an author with a big mind, a big heart, blazing chops, and a political acuity that is needle-sharp. The needle hits the vein before we even feel the prick.