Afternoon.

Teen angst

Is a myth.

Just like unicorns and dragons.

It does not exist

Except in the minds of the adults

That label teenagers as being 'angsty'.

It simply makes it easier for adults to

Dismiss the feelings of teenagers.

It is the excuse to say "oh, it's only your hormones".

Our emotions are not valid to you?

Are they so different from your own?

Do you suddenly stop having hormones at some age?

I think not.

Why do adults continue to label us

And laugh at our emotions?

Some mornings I wake up and think

"I'm a teenager. This sucks."

Age is no reason to discredit people.

All of this "Suppressed angst" nonsense

Can really drive one into the ground.

I dislike the feeling.

Of being plowed into the ground because

I am 16 years old.

It's a limit that I can't transcend.

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

I have constant chills of this bittersweet emotion,

Filled with so much content masked by the restlessness

Of my fluttering soul.

Somewhere between singing and crying,

And jumping from windows,

I am here

And I am needing to say things,

This desperate need to spill my soul,

Oh the ink on the page,

My blood.

And I have this burning desire to scream,

And go mad.

It's so beautiful.

I could cry for all the right reasons right now.

I could collapse under the weight

Of the immense stress

Right here,

I could sprawl on the floor in a fit of contempt,

Stark madness.

For I am so split,

So confused and propelled,

Inspired.

Compelled to do everything.

Stay up all night,

And just laugh.

All alone in the dark,

Oh! It is so joyous,

To know nothing

And everything.

I know what I want.

But it is impossible to procure.

Everyday I come closer to knowing,

Beyond the shadow of a doubt,

What I want,

With all of my expanding soul

And shuddering mind.

To BE.

To be like the greats,

The rebels and thinkers

The ones who knew without knowing.

To be like Ginsberg, Kerouac, everyone.

My greatest fear, the greatest,

Is to lose the ambition to become that person.

For my love and passion to fail me.

This desire that ravages my mind in my waking hours,

And lurks in my sleeping ones.

To succumb to the art completely and totally.

What is it?

To be taken over by poetry?

To be wrapped in art?

My desire seems so unattainable.

And despite your words,

I still worry, and stress over this looming future.

College.

Jobs and practicality.

What would happen if I lived on this impulse?

To be what I can only desire?

A member of my own reality.

With "L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N." on repeat,

And the promise of the rest of my life laid in front of me,

I feel so overwhelmingly confident.

How could this be?

A feeling if control?

Bittersweetly wonderful.

And I know, I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll all be the same,

But I'll live vicariously through my love affair with poetry.

And we'll make through this.

And you.

Who speaks calmly,

And asks me "What am I going to do? You know, when I grow up?"

What I wouldn't give to have you in my life.

Beyond this.

Where we can wake up in a small apartment, happy?

Living out our lives together,

And you'll wake up and make the coffee,

I'll watch you from the bedroom

And it'll be grand.

Simple things,

You know?

Somehow,

The world seems less scary

When you're on this sort of high.

Regardless of the cash I'll be feeling later,

I feel great now,

And I regret nothing.

Ashore.

I could:

Write about you,

To you.

Go to sleep and never finish this post.

Cry, for no reason.

Defy reason.

Go crazy, and drown in meter.

I could do all of these, at once, if the need so possessed me.

What I'd really like to say is "I love you."

This small reoccurring thought,

That comes and goes like the phases of the moon.

I will one moment be thinking about one thing,

And my mind will suddenly whisper "I love you."

The wave of recognition that comes with this

Is fresh each time,

It never ceases to surprise me,

These outbursts of the inner conscious.

You,

Whom, I sometimes feel I hardly know.

You,

Whose words I think too much into.

You,

who, when I speak to, I feel utterly stupid.

Catatonic.

With bad jokes and sometimes singing,

And whispering that makes my heart sometimes beat irregularly.

Perhaps you're giving me an arrhythmia,

But when you whisper,

It kills me,

It really does.

I don't know why, for really,

I have no right to feel this way,

And yet I know, my wish will never come true.

Of waking up one morning and forgetting.

Forgetting that this strange ordeal of feelings existed.

Somehow, the mind doesn't forget these things.

Sometimes... I wish for the exact opposite of forgetting.

If I let myself slip too much,

I catch myself indulging all the ideas everyone else puts in my head.

When they call us 'cute', I simply don't understand.

You,

Who hath instilled feelings that make me ramble like the naive teenager I am,

Make people doubt that I am not angst-filled.

(I swear, angst is a ridiculous myth.)

You,

Whom I do not want a silly, teenage-type sort of relationship with.

You, whom I try hard to forget, and can't.

I love you, lovely one.

Adieu.

Dirt On Your New Shoes

I had strange dreams.

With odd foreboding messages

That made them scarier upon waking up

Than when I had been actually dreaming them.

I'm not quite sure what they meant,

With shifting scenery and people I knew,

And didn't know. And places that seemed very

Frightful.

And he was there,

But then he wasn't.

And then he was again,

We talked about "The Shining".

Then I had a highly jealous moment.

In a dream.

I had no idea that you could feel

Jealous in a dream.

It scared me.

They were dreams that I don't recall all the

Details, but regardless, they scare me.

White Collar Boy

I hate when you are completely entranced by something,

And you try to hardcore devote yourself to it,

And then you get stuck in an unbearable rut.

Between a rock and a hard place.

How does one become stuck?

Even when the same passion courses through you?

What part of you decides, "Well, I've had enough of this for now."

While some other part is screaming "Inspiration!" at the top of its lungs.

What nonsense design of the brain tortures us so?

Perhaps we become too busy,

You know how you think clearer about things

When your mind is less occupied?

Like in the shower?

Or right before bed?

Your thoughts culminate and make

Brilliant sense.

because the mind has nothing to do but

Think.

Glorious, isn't it?

Exhilarating.

And so is this pantheon of things on my mind

Preventing me from doing the one thing

I actually want to think about?

Put effort into?

It seems a curse, indeed.

The Ghost of Rockschool

Why is crying the only cleansing measure I can think of?

Not that I am, right now,

But I'm about to.

Why is it that the stupid, underachieving kids

Have the most fun?

Don't have the same pressure on them?

To succeed? Go to a Good College?

Be 'somebody' in a world of 'nobodies'?

Why does it have to fall on the good kids?

All the pressure to do something

"WORTHWHILE"

With our lives?

Giving up is the easy way out.

But,

I've come to far to "give up" now,

Or have I?

What the hell have I done in my life

That makes me worth my salt?

Answer: I've followed all the goddamn rules.

I've never done anything out of line.

Anything strictly for me.

How narcissistic, right?

I'm going to disagree.

Living a life just to 'live a life'

Is not acceptable

In the Audrey Metzger School of Philosophy.

(Yeah, I've got one of those.)

Neither is following the rules for the sake

Of following the goddamn rules.

And you know what I'm going to do about it?

Nothing.

Because I'm just too overwhelmed and

"well-intentioned" to do anything about it.

I can't go and skip school for a day to go to a museum.

I can't wander the streets at night

And soak in the hours of day I relish.

The hours that are so sacred.

I can't take a cold shower in the middle of the day

On a Wednesday because I feel like it.

I have to be 'successful' so I can 'succeed'

And 'make something out of myself'

And live a 'good life'.

I've got to live the way I've been raised

For Christ's sake, it's getting

Ridiculous.

I'm restless and lost

And broken.

Just fed up.

I've had it.

And I can't change it.

I'm so scared that my life is going to be dictated by

Somebody else.

By the choices I have no choice but to make.

When,

Dear god,

When?!

Does my life become my own?

When can I say "fuck you"

To all of this pretentious shit?

Too much pressure.

So much, I'm paralyzed.

So I just continue down my pre-destined path,

All goody-two-shoed and all of that jazz.

Doing my homework

Sacrificing my soul.

Do we all drown in this mediocrity?

Does everyone of us die everyday?

If not,

Tell me, please,

When do we get to the point where

Life doesn't make us want to puke?

Somehow,

Even college doesn't sound fun anymore.

Another four years of my life I'm not so much looking forward to

Now.

Needless to say,

I have no fucking clue what to do with

My life.

Have a good President's Day, guys.

At least Old George and Honest Abe knew what they were doing.

Shanghied

Have I ever before mentioned that I

Have no idea what I'm going to do

With my life?

And how unnerving that is?

How people I know

Know what they're going to,

Have even the faintest grasp

On what they want to spend their lives doing.

Photographers, social workers, optometrists.

The people I don't know that

Change the world, do funny stuff.

That make that difference.

God, if only I had some faint glimmer of what the hell

I'm going to do.

My imminent future is coming up fast,

The rest of my life is 'almost here'.

College?

Of course.

It's never been an option.

Which one

And for what

Are the real questions here.

I feel very broken down.

Identity-less.

What will happen?

I haven't a clue.

College.

Columbia?

In my dreams.

Somewhere in Ohio?

Much more viable.

Will I ever get out of this godforsaken place?

No.

I'm in too deep.

And it sucks like hell.

Perhaps

I'll be livin' in a van

Down by the river.

(Oh, Chris Farley...)

Nomadic

And broke.

Is that how this will play out?

South China Moon

You are ever so slightly

Wedged into my mind,

In between all of the schoolwork,

Broken philosophy,

You've made yourself a small home,

In a cove in my brain.

And you do not realize,

I don't think,

What it means.

What it is to have someone,

A lovely, dear someone,

Shacking up with your thoughts,

Peculiar roommates you are.

When you sleep in my mind

It is calm,

But sometimes I sleep

And you wake

And we battle out these restless dreams.

You are the midnight sun

Behind my eyelids deep in slumber.

You don't see what it means

To be clouded by your blue eyes,

Your words,

That, when you speak them,

Stick in my head,

As though laced with honey.

You don't know this happens.

It's funny how that works.

I sometimes wonder

Do you think of these things that we say to each other?

I suppose you do,

You bring them up sometimes...

Which is becoming more often.

Your phrases rise and fall anxiously

And I can't help but smile,

You sound so animated.

What do you think of in sleep?

I always want to know what people dream of,

Dreams speak volumes that full consciousness never could.

Dear,

It is so strange to think

You, with someone I do not know.

But it is so logical,

It makes such perfect sense,

Unlike what I think.

But somedays,

Your tone seems a little bit wavering.

And I take a bit of happiness

In your words.

Perhaps,

If I wish on many more stars,

Things will change.

I'm sorry this is so horribly

Blinded.

So horribly wretched,

Why should you read my tormented lamentings

And teenage ponderings?

I know not, but so you continue to read.

The weird thing is,

I never, ever see these scenes of you and I in my head

As being anything teenage.

There isn't anything amateur and juvenile.

Nothing naive.

I'd say one of these odd scenes,

But it would be strange.

It would give away crucial details,

which I cannot let slip.

So adieu, adieu.

I am just babbling at you now...

True or False

Indeed, it would seem

That life is based in something deeper.

Steeped in something stronger.

But it only seems so,

And most people stop at the 'seem',

Never make it to the 'is'.

Most stop before the questioning begins.

It's always vexing,

Why do they do that?

Just accept things.

Move on.

Drifting lost little souls.

No discourse to call their own.

No philosophy to take root in.

It leads to shallow graves and shallow minds,

It is always ends

So close to beginning.

Why does it occur as such?

Conversation

Is so very surface-level.

I am guilty as much as everyone else,

But oh, why?

Why is it all the why it is?

Which philosophy will explain this?

Which discourse will show me the way?

When will I be able to talk intelligently?

When does it click into place,

The knowledge?

The ideas?

Lost.

Like suns without horizons.

Geez,

Why is it so difficult to get a handle

On

Anything?

If everything was tangible.

If I could run my fingers through thoughts

Like one can do with a handful of sand.

Nothing works.

All falls a little bit,

Sags under the weight of life.

And the bridges get burned,

The walls built.

Destroyed.

I'm not sure what it all means.

Not sure at all.

All I am sure of

Is this conflict rising in my mind

Will soon some to blows.

In the madness,

I think I will find one answer.

That's the best-case scenario...

And, really,

I wish you weren't so kind.

Your sincerity kills me sometimes,

You're sweet.

But would you be so kind

As to let our hands brush?

Because when you stand so close,

And say things as you do,

It's heart-wrenching.

Why is that?

The Lion and The Teacup

Why can things that we love

Break us down?

Why let anything have such crippling power

Over our weak humanness?

Why do we helplessly cling to such desires?

I am not sure.

But what I love,

Is killing me slowly.

Oh, poetry,

Thou art a cruel and heartless lover.

And I need direction.

I need.

A lot.

That poetry can give me,

But it's holding its secrets all hidden away,

In the codes I cannot crack.

And the feeling this induces isn't that of, say,

A flower withering in the noonday heat.

It's a little more like a the flower that gets

Haphazardly run over by the lawnmower.

What it is to be defenseless.

In the face of violent passion.

Poems.

In my dream they make more sense

Than in my waking hours.

And I'm lacking in a instruction.

Direction.

Something, sadly, I still need.

And I'm a little lost.

A little confused.

And I've been continually turned all

Topsy-turvy

By this guy,

All blue-eyed.

Gah, what does one do?

But don't answer that.

It makes me feel naive.

Let me grapple with these

Stupid vines myself.

And I'll honestly say,

I'd give anything if he would slay the

Vicious green plants.

And free me.

In my dreams

He does.

He's always that one.

That knight in shining armor.

It's all so silly,

You see,

It doesn't make sense

To be this person,

Tangled up in someone

Like this.

It makes me mind swim.

But you are the sea.

And oh, it's awful.

Simply horrible.

There's no escaping an ocean,

Now is there?

Poetry

Taunts me.

He haunts me.

I'll probably just write a poem

About him.