This Old Town

Reality is something stark and overbearing

and so full of twisting contradictions that

I am nearing the end of my rope

in trying to make any sense of this

tangled mess.

People are liars and thieves

and double-crossers

and sometimes you really can't trust the

words that come out of their mouths.

Why is it that lies come off the tongue

more easily than anything near honesty?

I am getting so tired of being

so utterly screwed over.

The system I'm swimming in

is so corrupted and backwards sometimes.

The right people are getting pummeled.

And the ones who are all wrong and rude

always manage to come out unscathed.

So goes life.

And it will always be this way,

it always has been,

and who are we kidding when we say

that life is fair,

and people work for the the good of people.

It's a cruel joke mankind plays

on itself.

But so it goes.

I'll float on and manage to stick it to the man

subtly,

because what else can I do?

Columbus.

Reading the senior columns in the school paper

is such a depressing thing to do.

They're leaving,

they're practically gone.

It's hard to believe,

that I may never see them again.

Why in life does this happen?

And dear god,

what happens in two years

when we all leave.

What happens then?

It's a terrifying thought.

It makes me freeze in fear.

Someday we'll be graduating.

We'll be moving on,

moving up.

To bigger and better

and possibly scarier things.

More trying times,

but more freedom.

In two years

we leave this shelter.

We'll be out in the open

seas then.

Going to college

and chasing down our dreams.

It seems so close,

so horribly close.

I can't believe it.

Two years.

Wow...

It'll go by much too quickly.

Sentimentality is attacking me.

I am simply flabbergasted.

Wow.

The days are too long

and too short,

all at the same time.

Less time to sleep,

not enough time to edit.

And absolutely no time to do

what I want.

What I need to do.

I have to submit a healthy

lot of poems by next Wednesday.

I'm not ready for that.

And I didn't accomplish much today.

I feel so unprepared.

I feel so awful.

Celebrate Like it Is

Sometimes there are days when

you are suddenly content.

It just springs itself on you somehow,

like a really pleasant leech.

It sort of sticks to you,

and a dumb little grin clings to

your face.

I love that stupid-happy feeling.

That feeling where, despite the stressful days

and restless nights, you're just inexplicably

alright.

It's superb.

Days when the skies are beautiful,

the people are swell,

splendid things like that.

When you can fall asleep,

looking out your open window

and think quietly,

"I am alright, we're all alright,

and life is going just fine."

Because I think everyone will be alright.

Something in humans is so utterly resilient,

we can bounce back from anything.

The bad, the worst, the unbearable.

We'll recover.

It's going to be just fine.

As long as we've got someone to confide in,

and the wind at our backs,

I am sure we can each blaze our own trail

and create ourselves to be

whatever we please.

Despite all circumstances,

despite the suffering around us,

we grow and overcome

all that once made itself a cage around

our souls.

Like hot air balloons, somehow.

We'll rise

in spectacular colors.

Humans can overcome even our

own flaws.

We've got a way of righting things.

It's lovely.

And weirdly,

I am alright in admitting

that I want to do something

that will make me poor,

and will probably loose me some respect.

Following our hearts is what gets us everywhere in life.

We've got to listen to our desires

and fulfill them to be complete people,

fulfilled and happy.

I do not ever want to just go through the motions.

I want to do everything in my power

to become what I've envisioned for myself.

We all ought to live for something,

it makes waking up each day easier,

and it makes our night-dreams sweeter.

Living for something,

something that makes us happy,

is what life is about, I believe.

And on days like these,

I am so certainly sure

that I love you.

There is no doubt

lurking in my soul

and bones, to discourage

this feeling.

I am wholly ok with

being in love with you.

And it means more than just

wanting you for myself,

I want you to be happy.

No matter what the circumstances.

And I think that's a big part of

loving somebody,

caring about their state of being,

and their happiness.

It's days like these where

I can simply glance at you,

and feel so much better.

It's weird.

But it's ok.

It's you.

Heart, and soul, and brain.

Hands, and wrists, and arms.

Eyes, smile, and your peculiar laugh.

I simply had to fall so hard for you.

But I like that, some days.

And I simply adore you,

and I wish that some day

we can spend our days contentedly together.

Oh, wouldn't it be nice?

I love you.

And I am ever so fond of days

like these.

Fan Letter

It's been a week since I last said anything here.

Curious, how my thoughts manifest themselves

in different ways, away from this blog.

If that's what this truly is,

not just a horribly narcissistic diary.

But a week it's been.

And truly, I suppose there's been

nothing to write home about.

I'll give a boring update on my boring life, though,

in case anyone is curious as to what I do,

day in and day out.

We've begun on this endeavor, two friends of mine and myself,

a history project. Filming and writing essays and having a jolly good

time. It's interesting, as it's the only piece of schoolwork I'm focusing on

at all.

I'm really not doing that much else.

Haven't been, and won't be.

Poetry.

The Prophet

This history project.

All my life is condensed to.

------------

Yes,

I like this new space between.

The Cascades

I am so full of contempt right now.

So full of this swirling mix

of angst and the need to just break down

and scream at you for all the things that

make no sense, even in my own mind.

I just want to make you really,

really angry.

And call you a "misogynistic bastard"

even though you aren't.

Not at all.

Just because it sounds like a fantastic

insult to yell at you.

And yet,

I still love you.

You bastard.

(Misogynistic)

And yet it's all my fault

(inevitably)

because you've got no idea

what goes on in my sometimes

deranged thoughts.

I honestly cannot verbalize

this disgusting feeling.

I want to just puke

and have myself feel clean.

Purged

this emotion clinging to my insides

and ripping my brain and my heart and my kidneys

all to ruin.

I have no idea

how to describe this.

It's something like

being green with envy and jealousy

and then stewing in contempt

while having your brain ripped out through your nose.

Restrained.

Strapped to a table

with no way to shout and scream

and carry on.

For no reason

other than what I have brought upon myself,

singlehandedly.

It's disgusting.

I wish you could know.

I wish I could yell at you.

Then cry.

And have you somehow wordlessly understand.

I wish I had the guts.

I wish I did not feel this horrible way.

So I made some ironic dadaist poems

and hid my feelings for another day.

A ticking time bomb.

Blue Spotted Tail

On the cusp of

something.

On the cusp of

feeling.

Close to flinging myself

over the edge of some proverbial

cliff.

Close to feeling something like a swift

flick

of a match.

Suddenly.

Illumination.

And I would feel so burningly alive.

On this wish-washing cusp.

Of shedding these heavy, bulky layers

that are caterpillar-cocooning me

in some form I hate to admit

is me.

I am no Atlas,

With no globe to bear

on my straining shoulders.

I am nothing like that.

But I feel a little

like I think Atlas would.

Aching to just stretch out

and breathe a little bit deeper.

Like I am covered in layers of heavy

winter coats and scarves.

Wrapped up to the point

I am suffocating.

I am waiting to fling them all off.

I am waiting to breathe.

I'll be waiting for a while.

Battery Kinzie

Somebody has turned on the faucet

behind my eyes, in front of my brain,

and now it's leaking and won't stop.

And the weird salty lines that I've scrubbed

and scrubbed at just retrace themselves.

It's like ugly catharsis

gone all wrong.

Oh it's all wrong, I supposed.

People aren't where they ought to be,

and I want to just sort of pick them up,

as though I were just a large bird,

like a crane,

and I could put them right back where they belong.

It's been some sort of awful today,

a variety of strange sleepy haze

and scattered thoughts and horrid thoughts

and I just wish it hadn't happened at all.

Because now all I can do

is let my eyes drip and weep

like an oozing mosquito bite.

I'm an awful fright to look at right now.

And all I want to do is write.

So I will.

I will.

I will write and fix

and edit and cut and probably

cry some more,

and hope and hope and hope

that what I am doing

is what is right.

For me.

For now.

Somedays

I think I am an artist.

Others, I don't.

And somedays, like today

I say to myself

"I don't want to be an artist".

Which is forsaking everything

I love.

And other days,

I just write, and the status of myself

does not matter in the slightest.

I could be an artist, but it wouldn't matter,

not one bit.

But, to be perfectly honest,

I hate my technical writing.

I am upset with my technical writing.

I don't know how to fix it.

I am upset.

It is not going well.

Essays are essays are essays.

One after another

until I just can't bring myself to

throw myself into the crazy loop anymore.

I feel like a martini,

shaken, not stirred.

With ice.

So I'm covered in odd little bruises

and my head is just screaming.

I wish I were a bird.

Or a tree.

Or a sea.

I'd be happy as a sea.

Very happy.

I hate being so unable to help

my friends. There is not much I can do,

I don't know what to do, what to say.

I hate feeling illegitimate.

I need to write.

I need to quit this silliness.

Goodnight.

I love you.

Sim Sala Bim

I'm sweaty.

And band-aided and paranoid

of getting some plant-disease

or nameless infection

from tromping about in a small

strip of wooded land,

and walking through slimy water

and rocks.

And it was fun,

while it lasted.

But now I am only sleepy

and smelly and icky.

Too tired to work on poetry.

Which all I want to do.

The day will come when

I won't take any calls,

talk to anyone,

but just write,

instead.

All day, I'll fill pages and pages.

Real ones,

not Word documents.

And I'll find splendid phrases.

I will write my beat sonnet.

Someday soon.

When the weather is rainy

and slightly warm.

But not humid.

And I'll heave open the windows.

And let the curtains breathe,

and I'll gasp in all the fresh air

and expel all the stale air from

this place.

All the stale sentiment from my

soul,

the baited breath from my lungs.

Someday I might become a poet.

I will cross that threshold someday.

It doesn't have to be soon.

I'd rather wait.

Waiting isn't so bad,

if it's for the right things.

But now, I am here

and I am boxed up

and hunched over and

feeling so very

alone.

The television voices are whispering

to the fridge's metal hum.

I can't understand their conversation.

I know I'm not supposed to.

And while I'm here alone I am

feeling all cold and dried up,

and I want for certain small and insignificant things I can't

possibly have.

You won't laugh if I tell you what they are, right?

His voice.

It's got a cathartic rhythm to it at times,

and I adore it most times. His smaller voice

is splendid. His laugh is adorable.

I want to hear him talk. About anything.

But I can't.

I can't call him and listen to him.

His hands.

I want to just simply hold his hand.

Right now. They're always warm,

calloused.

I can't have his hands either.

I will never have his hands.

It kills me at times like these

to realize that really, nothing will ever happen.

Nothing. It might just never happen.

It's implausible.

It's also wildly stupid

to fall in love like this.

I hope some small and vulnerable part of him

realizes, somewhere, subconsciously,

that I love him.

I'd like to say, just once in my life,

if I ever, ever got the chance, to say

"I love you".

He makes me happy,

and he tears me to pieces as well.

That's what it's all about.

And I don't think I have ever wanted so badly

for him to just sort of hold me.

It's so silly,

I hate to admit such a silly, dumb thing,

but it's true.

Truer than true.

And I can't help what I think of him.

It just spirals deeper and deeper everyday

into something I have less and less control over.

I do not deserve him.

He's probably got someone lovely.

And he should.

Sometimes,

my hands almost burn with

the need to put words

in an order

that makes sense to me.

The absolute need to make

poetry.

To create what I can,

to craft something

from the rubble and ruins

that the world offers,

to blend it seamlessly

with the small moments of

unmistakable beauty

mother earth lets us glimpse.

Sometimes

it's all I can do,

it's all I want to do.

I have no greater passion than this one.

And it frustrates me so

when I can't get it right.

When I seize up and

the thoughts fail.

It tries to consume me

like tongues of

the most tempting flames.

-------------------------------

Sometimes

you're all I want.

Sometimes

it's simply the thought

of being able to say

small words.

To be able to say nothing at all.

To be able to look at you

and smile at you

and have it not be weird.

Sometimes

I get really jealous

for no reason.

And sometimes,

I just get tired

of this.

But more than anything else,

I am irreconcilably

in love with/for/and by you.

Love is weird.

And yes.

I am pretty sure this

is what is commonly accepted as

"love."

Please don't tell me otherwise.

My mind is made up.