Guess who!?

Ayy, check it out!
When you're finally honest with yourself you open yourself up to get hurt.

Very nice. Very good. It feels good. Knowing you're still alive. The pain reminds you.
It's a good thing.
Today was pretty interesting.
I couldn't get my shit together to draw enough. I was having a rough go of it.
But I sat there and I started just doodling.

Alright, well I drew me. I guess it's a sad commentary on myself. I just think I'm human trash so it's no wonder things are the way they are.
I've heard that if you can't love yourself how do you expect others to as well?
Well, yeah I guess you're right.
The times I actually liked myself was when I saw the things that others liked in me.
So maybe that phrase is just complete and utter bullshit.

A Moth in a World of Butterflies.

A man, worthy of a king, befallen a curse.
The curse of being too much himself.
Too caring, too loving, too blunt, too serious, too playful.
Too much the king he is that it scares everyone away.
A beast, alone and convinced this curse will end him.

The millisecond we met and you wrapped your arms around me...
The friction of our molecules sparked a fire that has not since stopped roaring.
Roaring like I did, crying for what could be in the past.
The fire fed through nothing of my own will.
A force unseen radiating from you.
This fire rages, licking the tips of my fingers as they wish to warm you.
Touching you hoping to join the same fire inside.
Hoping to consume, hoping to grow, hoping to burn bright.
So much that it inspires others.

That moment of eye contact. You flipping your hair on your shoulder.
It felt like you were shooting waves of a unseen force to me.
The vibrations shaking the very foundation of everything I ever known about anything.
I didn't realize I was lost until the moment I made you smile.
Your laughter was like a way point. The compass pointing true north.
I knew where I wanted to go, and where I wanted to be.
There was purpose in the way you looked at me and your lips parted.
You radiating this beauty I wanted to capture and keep in jars.
Seal it up and only to open in case of an emergency.
I sat there stunned. Only able to attempt to reciprocate. Awkwardly, in hopes that you might even have an inkling of the same fire inside.
I sat there, suddenly realizing the pieces are broken but they still work.
Not destroyed, not decayed, not gone.

Not enough.

The voices inside reminding me that I'm not enough.
You will never be enough. The words punching and slamming. Damning. Cursing.
I'm not what you want, I'm not what you need. I'm not anything that could be anything for you.

The vibrations continued as you laughed at my dumb jokes. You peeled away the shit internal monologue with every time you looked at me with your smirk. Every time you flipped your hair.
I felt like I became a different thing. No longer human or anything in between.
The chemistry bubbling away.
A metamorphosis. A moth to the flame. Hitting my self against it repeatedly, unknowingly, operating on just instinct.
A moth in a world of butterflies.
A king turned feral beast.
A true monster.

You unravel me. A simple mystery. Get lost in my patterns, let me leave you clues. Little scales and flakes rub off of me as we interact.
I try to leave a trail for you to follow.
A trail leading to the busted up shack of my heart.
A place built by true actions like loving too hard, caring too much, being too blunt, too serious, too playful. A place where I roared in intimacy, solace, tears, hope, and joy.
A place where now my heart burns there too.

A king. A moth. A beast. A monster. A man.
The man.
My heart burns there, too.



As a first draft, what do you think?

April 2018

Hey there reader. It's me! Zach!
How's it been? Well for me things have been kind of building up to this.
I've been working on myself since the beginning of the year and I feel things more. I'm more in tune with myself and I'm building my voice for sure.
Here's a recent picture of me.
I've also go a new vehicle. After a lot of careful planning and working on stuff I was in a position to make this happen.

I got a used 2008 Scion tC.
I'm working on finishing up a side project soon with some illustration. It's been interesting because the editor of the book said that he'd like to see me work on more young adult / kids books.
So this might be a good venture for me in the future.

I also have been writing up a treatment, and developing a story arc for this Boy and Monster project.
I've got a good idea going on for the pilot, and intro to the series.
I'm shooting for something dark, deep and something that makes you think.
If you've seen Over the Garden Wall you'll kind of get a feeling of it already.
I like a lot of the mature tones of Steven Universe and Adventure Time and I find myself being inspired by Pendleton Ward and Rebecca Sugar. I look up to JG Quintell as well. I spend a lot of time watching their cartoons and just dreaming that mine could be up there like that.
I'm doing a lot of writing and sharing with a select few people just to make sure the impact is there.
I want something magical and whimsical but with that underlying thought provoking thing going on.

I'm trying my hardest to find the power to stream on Twitch again consistently.
I just want more than it will give me. So I think that's why I'm hesitant to get shit going on that.


Well, here's me for the next few years. I gotta open up more doors for me while I try to explore myself as an artist, writer, cartoonist, illustrator, human, chubby boi and over all good dude!

End of Feb and half of March.

Me, smiling cause I'm actually kind of happy. 

Squid Character

My Space Frog!

My Zia T-shirt Design Entry: I submitted the purple and black one.

The last few things I did for the book so far: Two more images, some refining of style, decent colors, and I'm complete!

PS. My design didn't even make it to the finals. A shirt with a Reaper-esk Skull Guy won. It's a pretty solid design. I thought mine would at least end up in the running. Oh well. =)

How I got punched in the dick today. A short story by Zach Michaels.

Let me just say that nothing in life is ever normal.
Despite things feeling normal it can quickly go off the rails without warning.

I'm 32. I work a regular 9 to 5-ish job. My life is pretty routine.
When I woke up today I didn't think I'd ever be in the situation where I would end up dick punched.
I woke up, crawling out of bed, thinking about calling in sick today. Mainly because I'm mentally exhausted from trying to keep it together. It was cold, I was bundled up in my sweater and pj's not wanting to get changed for work. Today I wore my form fitting and "sweat free" boxers. They are tight and keep everything compact and nice. It's good for cycling and stuff. The morning just unrolls with the typical stuff for me. Convincing myself to just keep going because this is better than nothing at all.
I got together my shit for work, breakfast items, a snack and my lunch. I toss on my leather jacket and get to steppin'. Gotta be a responsible adult, I keep telling myself that. I have to just keep it together. One thing will lead to another and I'll catch a break soon. I sure did catch something, and thankfully nothing broke.
At work, I arrive to find out that most of the morning crew had called out. So it was me, my manager and my assistant manager to run the store for a few hours before the mid shifts arrived. I am on the register, as per the usual, doing my thing. Helping people out makes me feel better about myself because they come in with simple problems that I can fix easily. I can get pretty chatty at the register because I can have people open up to me pretty quickly. I'm an easily approachable person and I like sharing stories with people. But this is just something I do. It's the humdrum of my work. I get in these routines where everything can be the same so I try to make it interesting by chatting with them.
Customers come and go but a woman comes in with a request to pick up her special order and I help her per the norms. "Did you want to shop around before I ring you through?" I asked, with her just replying, "No thanks, my husband is shopping around and he can just pay for what ever he picks up." I laughed and rang her through. He came up as we were finishing up the transaction.
"Nothing today?" I asked. He replied, "No, not today! Couldn't find what I was lookin' for..." I probed him for information, "Well, what are you looking for, maybe we can order it?"
He tells me he's looking for a 7 inch single of Led Zeppelins Hey What Can I Do?
To no avail I can't order it or acquire it for him. So we end up chatting near the exit / entrance of the store. I stand on a raised platform and he's a step below just resting his arm on the counter as we talk about how CD compresses the audio and how the vinyl will have the sounds specific to the instrument. He liked the way it sounded on vinyl because you could hear the guitars strings and the drums symbols perfectly. As we were chatting he leans in asking me if I heard of that specific guitar they used, and while he did he tried stepping towards me.
In slow motion he kicks the step and begins falling towards me.
He is trying to get his balance where he ends up forming a fist as he falls.
I'm stepping to him, to try and catch him because I see this happening.
He lands a punch, full force into my dick, punching me straight up.
He lands on his side, hitting these little wire racks that hold news papers.
With a wince and a lot of physical pain I help him up and get him settled, thankfully he wasn't hurt.
My managers look over and everyone in the store is looking at us.
He's beat red. "Never would have guess I was gonna do that! Huh!? I'm 65 years old!" and he just leaves the store.
My manager asked, "Dude are you OK?" Looking at me dead in the eye.
I'm hunched over and I tell him, "He punched me in the dick."
Everyone in the store busts out laughing. He comes to the register and tells me to take a quick break.
I'm a little embarrassed and honestly I find it super funny that it happened. It's so random that things just play out like they do. I was just trying to play it happy and cool despite the circumstances and I get punched in the dick. I could have taken this extremely negative and been shitty about it, but honestly it made my day unique and interesting.
I'm not happy it happened but I feel like I handled it pretty well despite it all.
This lesson can be applied to a lot of life.
Even though you're doing your thing, life will punch you in the dick.
How you react to it will either make or break you.