Using

Hello my old friend
That's all there is to say now
We've been taking so long
Nothing has meaning
So we just stick with
Hello

But I need that hello
It's like some sort of pain relief
From how I torture myself in your absence
God, I need it so badly

It doesn't make me happy
I don't love you like I say
I don't even think I like you anymore
But God, I need you

You are an opiate
A pain reliever I used to need
But I still take you in every day because I have made myself still need you
Still need that sweet rush flooding my veins

You don't make me feel love
You don't make me feel anything
You just make me need you
You make me feel nothing
You are slowly killing me from the inside out and I am making you do it

You are not saving me
You are not a heroine
You are just

Heroin

The Hysteric

Me

I am afraid 

Of making a decision
Of what will happen if I don't
Of three things

Three people affecting me 

Three voices to listen to

Three directions to choose

None of this can be any good,
what has been quietly rising
in temperature (and temper) is
reaching fever pitch

I've been running in fear, in three
different directions, and now I'm
moving faster, and now I'm being
pulled apart at the seams until I'm
nothing

This is the decision between
a head screaming with hysterics
and a heart fluttering with hope

and it's up to

Me

The Hope

You

I like you

We rarely talk just between us

Only ever late at night

When everyone's around we're two faces in a crowd

But both making and laughing at the same kind of dumb jokes

Things are ordinary

When it's just us we make each other laugh with those dumb jokes

Both looking at each other with an understanding that maybe we're a different kind

It's something special

At least I hope so

For the sake of me surviving this time I hope so

For the sake of you not being afraid anymore I hope so

For the sake of you and me and us I hope so

And that hope is a thing

With feathers that will fly me

Away from old dead weights

Toward

You

The Head

You

I hear you

I've gone to you for advice again

And like always I hear but don't listen

I know you have fought long and hard with my same struggle

And that you want me to be happy because you're my friend

You are wise

You know that I am stubborn and don't always value happiness

But even though I try to listen because you're my friend

I am foolish

And I know that in my pigheadedness and refusal to listen I might just be making this worse and hurting myself more and I know you don't want me to learn this lesson the hard way like you did because that's not how things have to be

But it's how things are

And it's how things will stay

Sometimes you need to trust your heart over your head

And sometimes you need to listen to something but

Not you

The Heart

You

I love you

I have told you that many times

So many in fact that's it's lost meaning

For you it's as though I'm saying it to try to win you over 

Like its some magic spell that can fix all the wrong I've done you

It's hollow and selfish  

For me it's as though I'm saying it to fix all the wrong you've done yourself

Like its some magic spell that will make you see yourself in a better light

I think of it as selfless

But it is just my heart's selfish cry

Of loneliness you could solve if only

I could hold you again

I could kiss you again

I could help you again

I could console you again 

But I cannot so those things

And that would not solve anything

But still

The heart wants what it wants 

You

The First Law

The First Law of Motion

An object at rest...

Remains at rest.

As an engineering student

This has been drilled into my head

And for physics problems I always remember

Sometimes I forget

I stay at rest unable to start myself

And at rest the always moving worries of my mind

Have time to catch up

They retard my movement further

I sink deeper and deeper into a hole and yet

I keep digging myself deeper with my inaction

The First Law of Holes

If you find yourself in a hole...

Stop digging.

Its hard to stop doing something

That you do without doing

But it's easy not to feel like you're doing it

So when you are just living

at rest

at the bottom of a hole

It's easy to forget you're living and just feel dead

Which brings me to the first law

That all should follow at all times

The First Law of Life

Do not forget...

You are alive!

No Houses No Homes

Trapped in a prison of our own design

Trapped by monotony

Trapped by our own foolishness

and most importantly

Trapped of our own volition

Fleeing the work of five

Seek adventure in the other two

Imagine our own diversions like children

Drink and breathe poison to forget reality

Fleeing the places we work

Flashing lights and sounds

Long into the dark and quiet night

Returning only for

Rest and peace in stillness

Long into the bright and busy day

Are we not wanderers

In the glaring light of day

In the obscuring dark of night

Having nowhere to return to

No houses

No homes

Pretend

You need someone

And I need you now

It's been a month since you've seen me

We get coffee and talk for hours

I take you home and we say goodbye

And we hold each other in the cold night 

I love you so much 

And you pretend you do 

You need him now

But I need you still

It's been a month since I've seen you

I am still far away and we barely talk

And you tell me how he holds you

And how he makes you far happier than I could ever hope to

I love you so much

And I pretend I don't

Different

Though
I never really believed in "growing apart"
People change
Sometimes a lot and sometimes very quickly

Their hobbies
Their profession
Their joys
Their struggles
Maybe even
Parts of their personality

but not all of it

I said I believed people change
But I didn't
They may change everything about themselves
But not themselves
The very person that they are

But now that I'm walking away from you
I try to look back and see you

The same beautiful girl
with those same beautiful eyes
and that same beautiful soul

somehow you're
Different

Hurricane

Here we go again

I am done with you

And I break your buildings

You are done with me

And you build your dikes and walls

The same as always

Here we go again

I need you back

I smile and joke at you

You need just someone

So back you come like the sun through clouds

The same as always

You are like the weather

Unpredictable in how you begin

But no matter how thunderous your storm

You always calm again

Light Swtich

There are problems

Too big to ignore

At least in full light

Simply shut off the light

Or cloud up the air

Why does it matter if you're hiding from life

If nothing and no one can see to find you

Find me

I'm getting lost

Alone in the dark

Strayed from the switch after I killed the lights

Adrift and alone

Devoid of light

Derelict

Find me

Hypocrisy

I am ruled by my emotions

I am foolish

I am weak

But I know you

You are stronger than I 

So I give you this advice: 

Do not make the mistakes I have

Get out

Before you become the user and abuser

Before you manipulate only because it's fun

Before you end up too broken to follow this advice

Broken like this vinyl veneer of a man skip skip skipping and repeating this advice

A hypocrite telling you to let go

With his own hands clenched tight

Or at least I'd like to believe 

I'm not giving this advice 

To save another from how I was hurt

Because the way I held on was different 

Not because I rule emotions

Not because I fool others

Not because I exploit weakness

Because I am weak

And I lie even to myself 

And that lie is my real hypocrisy 

Warm Bodies

Sometimes in a meaningless life

Meaningless contact is enough

Just another warm body

Brings me back to reality

Reminds me I'm alive

Makes me happy if only for a moment

Sometimes in a meaningless life

I can be happy

With no meaningful reason

Other than your warm body against mine

And no promise of it ever happening again

Mulligan

I came here with

One thing in mind

I wanted a fresh start

A chance to find someone else like you

A chance to not make the same mistakes I once did 

A chance to do something other than hurt and get hurt 

And I found someone 

The same enough that she could mean the same

But different enough that I could be someone different

But as time went on I learned 

What they say is true

Old habits die hard 

And history is doomed to

Repeat itself 

Memento

I drove for miles and miles

Still I can't run away

There's memories of you

Everywhere I look 

Running alongside me

In that coffee cup

From the last time we went out

Sitting in the cup holder by the passenger seat

Reminding me of us together

In that 33

A repress of your favorite album

Sitting in a black trash bag by the back seat

I bought it as a gift for you

In your smile still burned into my sight

In your voice still whispering in my ear

In your perfume still filling my memory

In the taste of you still on my lips

But even though it's all in my head

It still feels like you'll follow me anywhere

Both a torment and a savior

Last Watch

Pacing up and down

Dark and empty halls

There is but one sound

Click click click

The footsteps of the last watch

Overseeing the desolate masses

With darkened and recessed eyes

Click click click

Each step passes another door

And behind each door resides

A new person with new demons

Each protected only by the last watch

Click click click

I pace these empty halls

With darkened eyes

Past darkened doorways

Listening to others darkened hearts

paying no mind to my own, beating with my footsteps, drowned out more each doorway, a heart burning ever dimmer, a beat growing ever softer

drowned out

Click

Simplicity

You make me laugh 

You make me smile

That's all there is to it

Talking to you is easy

Talking to you is fun

Plain and simple 

Looking into your eyes

Time lightly pauses 

In that moment 

We are happy

We laugh and smile

Life is easy and fun

You make me happy

For a moment 

Or maybe for longer

Because

I like you

That's all there is to it 

Plain and simple 

A Word with a Face

You knew him

You worked with him

You trusted him

He did not care

You were just going to get dinner

You were just going to talk

He did not care

You said no

He did not care 

You already felt alone

Like no one cared 

Not your parents

Not your friends

Not your boyfriend 

No one

So when your frantic search

For just someone to trust

Brought you to him

He took it

And then took so much more

And left that awful word

The one you had constant nightmares about

Permanently burned into your memory

He took you

He left you

And

He did not care 

Why Do I?

So many have hurt you

And it's always me

Who's there to kiss your scars 

So many have left you

And it's always me

Who's there to keep you company

So many have let you fall

And it's always me

Who's there to catch you and hold you tight

And yet it's always me

Who finds old wounds to hurt you

And in your pain and guilt leaves you

And pushes you over the edge to fall

So many have already done you wrong

And if I claim to be your savour

And if I claim to care at all

And if I claim to love you

Why do I?

Right and Wrong (Orbits)

I am sometimes so focused on making something right

With two wrong people and all the wrong words I've said

That I miss someone who has it right

I am unstable and so are you

So unsure of yourself

That you follow the crowd

An asteroid in this belt with me

Whom I thought I could fly alongside

But you so small so light so fast

Leave me alone in the dust

Spinning with nowhere gravitate to

Until you pass by then leave again

Stuck in unstable orbits so wrong

That is wrong for me

You are wrong for me

I am unstable but you are not

So self assured and confident

You stand out immediately from the crowd

A star who so many pause or stay for

Whom I think I can stay alongside

And you so small yet so stoic 

Make sure I am not left alone

I spin and circle around and gravitate to you

And somehow neither of us flies away

Finally a stable star and a stable orbit

Maybe that is right for me 

Maybe you are right for me

Maybe I have finally learned my right and wrong

And the old idiom that two wrongs can never make a right 

And to look inward and focus on the source of this orbit 

That could be something right

Closing In

It begins as it always does

The doors are shut

Like a silent gunshot from

A firing line to execute me

Now the walls may do their worst

And so may the voices

Ever present but normally drowned out

In the silence are heard

Their words fill my head like spilled chemicals

And still the walls

Every smallest sound another voice

Taunting

Doubting

Jeering

Sneering

Devaluing

Destroying

Every fear and neurosis screams at the top of its lungs

And still the walls

Breath        is no longer possible

Air flees this        terrible room

My lungs expand        and contract

Moving the        nothing inside        and outside

And still the walls

And still the walls

Closing in

Never to let me free

Crushing me alive

Beneath my own fear and self doubt

They stop and I am left in a small room

To contemplate why I have done this to myself

Again

Crashdown

You packed up you clothes in that bag every night
I would try to grab your ankles, what a pitiful sight
But after over a year I stopped trying to stop you
From stomping out that door and coming back like you always do

-Peter Silberman in "Two"
_________________________________________________________________________________

Begin: CE 2015-09-04 20:56

T-minus 242:56 to Crashdown

10: Contemplate suggestion.

9: Accept premise. Join together!

8: Plan far future. Sabotage near future. 

7: Maintain status quo. Maintain status quo? 

6: Break down. Begin death spiral

5: Fail to defuse fight. Split apart!

4: Complete death spiral. Vent anger on displaced target. Apologize. 

3: Get fucked up. Recover things previously discarded. Restabilize.

2: Contemplate conclusion. Notify secondarily related parties. Prepare.
1: stall. Second guess. stall. Steel yourself.

0: Cut the cord. forget...

End: CE 2015-09-14 23:52
T-plus 00:00:00

Crashdown

as it seems
two years of you leaning on me
Meant nothing to you
so shall it be
two years of me leaning on you
Mean nothing to me

Your dishonesty is too much to bear
My love is too damaged to continue
Our relationship
Our commiseration
Our celebration
Our connection
Our friendship

is

over



Goodbye
I sincerely hope not forever

Breakfast

I love the dining hall in the morning

The quiet
Space to just eat for once
Instead of the clamor at meals
Later in the day

The intermittent
clatter of the kitchen
making
food for a slow stream
of students

The unity in the union
No one is there to talk
No one to judge you
Just to eat a breakfast

The quiet
Without the silence
Without what permeates my nightmares
Without that sharpest psychological chisel tearing at me
Without any space for that nagging voice in my head to tell me "it's time to go"

I love the dining hall in the mourning

Puzzle

And I, I have to speculate

That God himself did make

Us into corresponding shapes

Like puzzle pieces from the clay

-Ben Gibbard in "Such Great Heights"

_________________________________________________________________________________

The thing about puzzles is

They are always difficult

They take a long time to put

Together

The thing about puzzles is

They are always possible

Their pieces always fit

Together

The thing about puzzles is

You'll end up frustrated
You'll end up angry
You'll end up sad
You'll end up depressed
End up broken
                                 
Just wanting to give up


Don't

The thing about our puzzle is
It took a lot of time
It took a lot of wrong pieces
It took a lot of us

but
We solved it
Together


Together
You and I

Separation Sonnet

We spent so long together here
I fail to understand "apart"
For all this time I held you dear
Can I ever free my heart?

And when we spoke we'd just connect
So you became my dearest friend
Your fragile soul I still protect
Can that ever really end?

And every time I'd hear your laughter
It heartened me to make it through
I cannot think of what comes after
Can I make it without you?

To answer all these questions: "No"
You shaped and built my self entire
Taught me well to walk through fire
But time has come for me to go
And though at times we still may talk
Our separate ways we have to walk

_________________________________________________________________

Not strictly a sonnet but it combines the first thematic part of an English sonnet with the second thematic part of an Italian sonnet. Fourteen lines just wasn't quite enough to get my point across. It's also in tetrameter instead of pentameter because I just like the sound better.

Perfect

I finally understand why you hate it

The overzealous discipline

The taking it too seriously

The endless toil

The futile pursuit

All in the name of "perfect"

I loved it for a long time

I sought until I could not see

I ran until I could not stand

I sang until I could not speak

Poured everything I had

Into everything I did

And painted perfect pictures of everything I wanted

Even of you

All the things that worked mattered

All the things that didn't didn't

Beautiful moments engraved

Painful moments erased

And I ran after that perfect image of you endlessly never getting any closer but always believing I could one day lay next to her and watch the clouds

Until I could not

I wish it had been earlier

I had known you earlier

I had believed you earlier

I had tried to fix this earlier

I hate it too now

But it's too late to stop trying

So I am stuck chasing you and chasing this abstract idea

Pouring everything into nothing

Never to be happy

So used to the perfection in my mind that nothing in this imperfect world could ever hope to make staying in it at all worthwhile

So if you find my body

Sleeping below an imperfectly tied knot

Wincing at imperfectly drawn lines

Crying by an imperfectly pulled trigger

Bury me anyway

And write on my gravestone:

I was not perfect

And neither are you

And I guess that

is ok

It's Really More for Decoration

You bandaged a scar

A wound healed long ago 

In a way

Too little too late 

You apologized for old transgressions 

Things I maybe once hated you for

But I forgave and maybe forgot

My heart unbroke long ago

So it may be too late

But it is not to little 

What you said means 

Something 

Not as an apology

But as a gesture of friendship

A wave

A handshake

An embrace 

So thank you

For caring 

I'll wear your bandage even though I don't need it

What I Miss

I lie awake unable to 

Even dream of sleeping

Sitting up in bed listening to a song

I've missed for far too long

I remember something familiar

Sitting the same way on a hotel bed

Keeping you awake until you weren't

Because you were as I am now

I miss talking each other to sleep
I miss being mistaken for a couple 

I miss our stupid jokes

I miss our pity parties

I miss us

We fit together

Like peanut butter and jealous 

You know which one I was

I miss fitting together 

We climbed a steep cliff face

Belaying each other when we'd fall

You always seemed to be falling

I miss taking on the world together

I guess I miss

Being happy with you

Instead of

Being in love with you 

Can You See Me?

Can you see me?

Like you did that night

When my heart was of glass

You saw through it

My broken love beat there
And after the glass shattered
I think my shrapnel struck you

Can you see me?

Like you did that day

When my eyes were dead 

You saw behind them

My weariness wept there
And though my words claimed otherwise

I think my tone told you the truth

Can you see me?

Like I see myself
    weary             useless
           unlovable
 broken          inept



             alone



Or after all the damage done

Do you see someone whole

Do you see someone meaningful
Do you see someone tenacious
Do you see someone who deserves existence

Do you see?

Can you see?

How much you make me smile

How much you teach me about living 

How much you mean to me
How much you always did

Can you see how I see you?

Do you see me how I see you?

With that endless understanding in your eyes

Please understand that I know I said it wrong before 

And understand that I am doing my best to say it right this time 

Can you see 

How you make me feel
That I am not alone

Psychomelodrama

When your world is in greyscale

You have to paint the colors vibrantly

Even when they are all wrong

The red is blood not love 

The orange is danger not warmth

The yellow is jaundice not the sun 

The green is envy not nature 

The blue is tears not the ocean 

The violet is poison not regal 

You have to break the cycle

Take the hue of all the pain
The blue from your shut eyes
The red from your open veins
The yellow from your skin and rotting liver

And you paint or you dance or you act or you sing or you write
You create art

You create something to remind you that
There is color in the world
There is more than an endless void of grey

And you have to paint the colors vibrantly
Because even the worst rainbow is better than a stormcloud

Sides of You

        I know that there are many sides to every person, but this is going a little too far. These stories don't add up and I showed up late enough to the party that no evidence remains. This is he-said she-said and I can't know who to believe, or if somehow I can believe you both. He says you take and abuse trust, even though you say it was you who was taken and abused.
        Yours was a matter of trust too, the people closest to you became monsters of the basest kind. They made you feel worth something and gave you your fix in more ways than one. But they took the trust they earned, murdered it, and left you bleeding in a society that did not care about Kitty on the street crying bloody murder. So why would it care about one more girl crying rape?
        So with your trust so brutally defiled, how could you even conceive of abusing the trust of another? How could you pull the knife from your back and swing it's blade so wantonly? And if you did swing so wildly around it'd be easy to pass of the inevitable cuts on yourself as the assault of another. I do not want to believe you are so vile, but maybe that's just a side of you long hidden.
        But an uncaring society might view those cuts others forced on you as your chosen scarlet letter. And they throw away damaged goods to prevent the bad apple from spoiling their bunch, and blame it for its bruises. I can't know who to believe, but either way you are different from how you previously seemed. You have hidden sides of yourself to protect you, be it from judgement or from pity. The latter I can respect, the former suggest maybe I'm just another victim that you can later paint as a perpetrator.
        So now I have to take a step back in case this side of you will harm me. And maybe in case there are still more sides of you hidden in the shadows. Waiting to push me further away than your radio silence ever could.

Memories

I remember
Late night talks
I remember
Out-of-the-way walks
With you

I remember
Venomous words and fights
I remember
Apologies and dying light
With you

Everything
With you
Against you
About you
I remember everything that's you

I wish I didn't

Sometimes I will be in an anonymous crowd
Someone will wear the same perfume as you
Somehow I will remember so much more

You said I was listening to your favorite song
So we loved music together
And you laughed at my lame music
And I leaned against you and laughed too

You sat beside me with a long way home ahead of us
So we kept warm together
And you slept on my shoulder
And I kept watch over the open road

You wanted to hang out for once
So we watched a dumb movie
And you gained a new favorite
And I laid my head in your lap

Somehow I remember
When we were close enough
That you flooded all my senses
And know it can never be that way again

I remember
What you said
I remember
How I bled
I remember
Cut red thread

I wish I didn't
But I remember everything that's you
And how it really is everything
And how there will be no more you in my life

And how memories are but jagged shrapnel of better times rending me anew each time I try to return and repair whatever it was that broke

So I wait for the day when
I don't remember
Anymore

Lies and Realities

I loved you from the moment I met you
That's a lie. I hated you when I met you. I hated talking to you, I hated listening to you complain, I hated how you'd always be upset about the same damn thing. I thought you were this obnoxious little annoyance. Hell, I thought you were just pretending to be hurting for the attention. But I stuck around because I felt like I had to.

I have all the confidence in the world in you.
That's a lie too. I'm scared near constantly that you're right about yourself. That one day you'll end up dead in a gutter having overdosed on some drug or another. I'm scared that you won't make it. Hell, sometimes I'm scared that I won't make it without you if you don't. But I stick around because I feel like you need that confidence.

We fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
That's another lie. Yeah we have a lot in common but we don't "fit together" in some special way beyond the fact that we usually enjoy each other's company. Hell we don't even tolerate each other half the time. We argue and fight damn near constantly. But I'm sticking around because I feel like the good times are worth it.

You're the most beautiful person I've ever laid eyes on.

That's just one more lie.



...I think
See that's the problem with making up my own version of the truth. With writing a revisionist history. With putting up a facade to hide what I really believe. With pretending the arguments and hateful words don't matter in the end.
Truth and lies blend together into a false reality I no longer understand, but I need to survive. A reality I need so I can survive, but one that is coming apart at the seams as I'm caught in the web of lies I wove.
But that wasn't one more lie. You are the most beautiful person. So I stuck around. So I stick around. So I'm sticking around.
Because the most beautiful piece of my false reality is true.

You.

The Same Sky

I fall to my knees
Take cover
From the bombs falling over my head and heart

I roll onto my back
Look up
Wondering if you feel the same fear

Am I a good person?
Does anyone really care?
Is anyone truly my friend?
Am I worth anything?
Does anything really last?
Is anything truly important ?

I stare up at the sky
As these bombs keep falling and these questions keep asking themselves
And wonder if you do the same

After all we live under the same sky
And the same planes dropping the same bombs
And these same dark clouds

Shakes

I don't know if this is you
Or if that is him
Or if that is anyone 
Because if this is not you then both might as well not exist to me

He and you flash in my mind
all the time
every night
every word you say he is wonderful and he loves you just maybe like I do
Every time he and you and I am still unfazed

but one mirage and i shake

it's only maybe-he and maybe-you but it burns out of the light
it burns at me while I sit completely vulnerable in the flesh
raw beauty exposed as maybe-you radiates from the light

my head races ahead and cuts itself off at the pass sending everything into a tailspin careening over the edge of a cliff I fear I could never climb again
could it be really-you? with really-him? and really-together? and did i go wrong somewhere? or was it just always meant to be this way? could there never have been us?
my stomach turns and I shake and I shake and I shake

pleased and turned-on by my lust
jealous and turned on by my love
my stomach turns as my feelings turn over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and i shake

my head spins as i make assumptions my breathing is laborious as i am crushed to death my stomach turns as i want to vomit this venomous envy out but cannot and i shake and i shake and i shake

i lie here cold
cut open by my own sharp tonuge
chemically burned by my own vitriol
my jealousy turns me against me 
the pain is BURNing but it just leaves me COLD
and i SHAKE

My Love for Music as an Art

        So this is the first piece of something very different in focus from the rest of my writing and more conversational rather than expressive or presentational. Late at night toward the end of June I was lying awake and just aimlessly browsing genre tags on a music website called Bandcamp when an idea struck me. Just as an aspiring novelist strives to read the work of numerous great writers before him or her, I as an aspiring poet and songwriter should take in as much new and different music as possible. So I set a goal for myself for the month of July to listen to a new album every single day, and now I've decided to share bits and pieces of that experience here.
        For the first week I decided to do something very similar to what lead me to this idea, and listen to albums from a fairly wide variety of genres, often genres I'd never heard of or ones previously dismissed. I expected to enjoy a large majority of the music I found and indeed I did but there was something that surprised me. I loved and appreciated all of it as art even if I didn't enjoy it, and I experienced so much more of the intense and complex emotions music can evoke as an art form.
        I found songs that made me want to be in a crowd at a concert (Art School Wannabe), songs that made me want to just let go and dance (Always Leaving). I found songs that reminded me both of my own personal highs (let (1)) and my own personal lows (You Are My Sunshine). I found songs that made me feel subtly uncomfortable (a line falls on two lines), songs that made me feel not-so-subtly uncomfortable (all of Angel-like Contraction Reverse).
        Feelings like that are what make music so important to me, it has an ability to rip the mundane and the monotony out of life and make it a truly varied experience. Whether you share my deep love for music or it's just background noise for your life I'd strongly recommend that you take time at some point to look for something new, you might be surprised at the interesting things you can find.
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Albums of this week: 

Joy, Departed by Sorority Noise
Oblivion Songs by Divine Circles 
I Love You, This Is A Robbery by Spoonboy
Angel-like Contraction Reverse by Nac/Hut Report
Let by Water Gun Water Gun Sky Attack 
Somewhere in the Sierra by alone.
Run the Jewels by Run the Jewels 

Prometheus or "My Inner Light"

        My old friend, I thank you for your letter, but  I write speeches for many to hear and take my views from, not correspondence for but one person to view me as they wish to. So I respond to you with this one and hope you will listen to what I say rather than proselytize at me about what I willfully abandoned.
        You are right about me, I do believe that words are for expressing something older than themselves, something dark and primal. My use of words to express these ancient things called emotions is art, not an expression of any personal struggle and certainly not a god damn "cry for help." And this art is not a voice "for the dark," it is my voice representing the dark. Helping others understand and deal with the darkness that is part of life now and helping them more than any prophet of things to come ever could.
        And I do believe in a "let there be light," but not the one of your precious YHWH. Those words were spoken in myth by the poster child of human ingenuity, Prometheus of Greek myth. Light was not a gift from a benevolent creator, it was stolen from a harsh and uncaring universe. We created our own light long ago when we first became bright enough to rub two sticks together. We let there be light and saw that it was good, and more importantly that it was ours.
        And so I won't join your crusade for a light I no longer believe in. I respect your beliefs, as everyone needs something to lean on, but I do not want or need your particular crutch. I did at one point but now I have a new and better thing to believe in but that is myself and my own inner light. I, like everyone else on this planet, am my own god and the master of my own fate. So I have to believe that I have the forethought and ingenuity of Prometheus to carry me through, and refuse to rely on a cosmic safety net.
        Frankly, I am angry that you act as if you know me better than I know myself, that you view my life as unsatisfactory because I am not the same as you, and that you presume I need help because my art does not reflect your ideals. Yes, life is a pile of shit. It's painful, it's dark, and it's uncaring about you or me or anyone else. But god damn it I love it anyway, and I ain't quite done with it yet.
Soli Ego Gloria,
-VNV

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I suppose Jesus is a Fuckboy by my friend Will could be considered related reading to this. I'm not in the habit of promoting others but check him out, his writing's way better than mine.

A Light in the Darkness

There is a reason we call the addictions and neuroses and insecurities that constantly haunt us our "demons." Though more a concept than a being, the Devil is very real. He even has a name: Lucifer, Bringer of Light. When you look the Devil in the face, as we are often forced to, he casts light into the darkness around you. And make no mistake, a light in the darkness is only a blessing when its director has your best interest in mind.

1. Nobody is afraid of the dark, they are afraid of the uncertainties which it conceals. Carefully selected lights illuminate those parts of that amalgam which we truly fear. Every worst case scenario that flashes through our minds to prevent action has been carefully staged to appear in full light.
2. The light at the end of the tunnel is the universal euphemism for hope in times of despair. Hope, however, is not always a good thing. Sometimes that light of how is an oncoming train ready to run us down. And so false hope is the lights left on just too long at the tragic end of the first act. 
3. Walking in the dead of night with only a flashlight to guide us, our vision is severely constricted. Every snap of a twig or rustle of bramble outside that small circle of clarity inspires worry and apprehension. And so the anxiety that keeps us ever on our toes is the lone spotlight focused center stage, making the surroundings seem so much darker

Knowing the uselessness of darkness, the Devil uses light to bring humanity to its knees. And while we lay there wretched and broken, one last spotlight shines onto the scene. In full light the stage is set for the final blaze of glory  

a knife

a gun

a rope

a balcony

a lake

a bottle

a syringe

And amidst this whole charade we never realized who was holding the flashlight, standing in the background, pushing us ever closer to the precipice, and chuckling as we stumbled over the edge. 

The Devil is not real 

But we are

Whispers

I dream about you again
I hold you in my arms again
I feel your warmth again
I stare into your eyes again
I feel like part of you again

I hear a whisper
Your whisper
For the first time
And it asks:

What was it like then?
When I held you close
When you leaned your body against mine
When you gripped my arm like it was the only thing holding you here
When I stared off into the distance and hoped that moment would never end

What would it be like?
If I looked into your soul
If you looked into mine and saw a reflection
If you felt the things I do and we saw we were the same
If I told you every last detail of the love I feel for every last piece of you

As I sleep at night
My heart whispers your whisper
My head listens hanging on every word
And it answers:

It wasn't like
It wouldn't be like
It simply never was

Like a whisper
I hear you sing soft and sweet the melody of the beautiful symphony that is the soundtrack of life

Like a whisper
I hear you fade and blend quiet into the inexorable white noise that is the soundtrack of life



And I never hear your whisper again

L'appel du Vide

The end begins quickly
You know it will happen
But you do not prepare
So the end begins quickly

You grab a piece of paper
You smile for the camera
You walk out into the end
So the end begins quickly

so the
slow fade
begins

You sit and reflect on this whole thing
but realize that the memories begin fading
When the end begins quickly

You stand and rejoice with friends
but realize that this is all just a slow goodbye
as the slow fade begins

In the dead of night
You realize you
don't
want
this

You
can not will not must not
accept it

fuck no

In the dead of night
Take the wheel
Get on One at two AM
Stare down the straightaway
Hit the asphalt with your right foot
RUN GOD DAMN IT

You fly north
Everything is the same
The ocean to your left
The mountains to your right
One stretching ahead of you

You blink quickly
Everything is different
vast landscapes flying past faster than light cast in front of the One thing that lasts

The One thing leading you away
the One thing keeping you moving
the One thing filling your lungs
the One thing beating your heart
The One thing ending your-
slow fade

You can't fight this One
no stopping the slow fade
so simply speed it up

speed up
no stopping
speed up
speed up
RUN FASTER

Hey you
What are you running from?
run faster
Hey you
Where are you going so quickly?
speed up

Hey you
Why are you running?
run faster

Hey you
speed up
Hey-
run faster
STOP

don't

just close your eyes
turn the wheel left



fall into the void


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A little bit of a footnote in case this seemed confusing because of a reference not everyone might recognize. "One" is kind of a persona or speaker in this poem, but it refers to a highway, specifically California State Route 1, pictured below.

The Last Thing I Won't Say to You

I asked if it was goodbye. You weren't sure, but if so I guess this is yours. Or at least it's how I feel about yours.
I think I get why now but I'm still torn apart by it because of how I felt about you. I know I told you a thousand times, but I really cared about you. There's another feeling there too, but Doctor Who put it better than I ever could dream to: "I wasn't very good at it, but I did love you." And I think "did" might finally be the right word for it now. I honestly hope so at this point. It's funny, but I knew it would end this way. I knew since before February 15th. The day after Valentine's Day.
The day I started this whole mess.
I was talking about the time before when we watched that movie that's one of your favorites now. I justified why I didn't say anything about how I felt then with this: "if this starts it doesn't end without it ending very badly for one of us." It turns out I was more right than I thought. Because at least for me this is the last way I wanted things to end. I hope you didn't want this either. I hope you cared about me like you said you did, even if it wasn't the way I wanted. But after two whole days of thinking I've decided that maybe this is the way things should be. I listened to "Give Up" on repeat, and it felt like every word described what went down. And I was going to give you the end of Nothing Better but I think this fits more:

"I was the one worth leaving"

I asked if it was goodbye. But regardless of whether or not that was yours, I guess this is mine.
Goodbye to my storyteller, goodbye to my listener. Goodbye to my my ward, goodbye to my protector. Goodbye to my mirror, goodbye to my opposite. Goodbye to my ally, goodbye to my opponent.
Goodbye to my love.
And goodbye to my muse.

I'll never forget you.

Mouthpiece

When I write
I am my voice
I put emotion to
Words

The emotion is
Mine
The voice is
Mine
But the words are
Yours

My thoughts on
Your wonder in
My eyes on
My page with
My? words

But they have to be yours
They are to you
They are about you
They are made of you
They couldn't exist without
You

I am a voice
Yours

But have no one to be

Mine


My? voice


I cant speak

Salt and Iron

I opened the door.
I should have known you would be there. It was a Monday morning in January. The day after your birthday. I didn't want to bother you but I had to eventually.
I sat down next to you.
I looked at you while you just lay there. But I couldn't see you for long. Your image became blurry. I shut my eyes as drop by drop salt met iron.
I breathed a heavy sigh.
I remembered how you talked almost every day about being there. I only ever half believed you. You scared me sometimes. I didn't think I really had to be afraid.
I brushed your hair out of your eyes.
I used to call you kiddo all the time. It was our cute little term of endearment for each other. You really were just a kid. Of all people a kid belongs there the least.
I bent over and gently kissed your forehead.
I had to convince you of a lot of things. That you were beautiful, that I loved you. You never really believed me. You believed you didn't deserve any of this.
I embrace you for the la-



Wait.



In your hand.
I know immediately what it is. The pen with which you wrote your final message to me. I tear it from your fingers and throw it as far from us as I possibly can. I burn with rage. Rage at you for doing this. Rage at me for letting it happen. Rage at love for not being enough. Rage at the world for hurting you this way. Rage at that pen for making this even a possibility. I rage rage rage rage rage against the dying of the light.

The dying of your light. Your already dead light. Your light that had been dead for so long but I didn't notice until now. Or I did and couldn't admit it. 

I have beaten the room until I am senseless. My fists cannot unclench, iron drips from my knuckles. My eyes cannot open, salt burns down my face. There is no more rage, only your dead light and mine.
I go and pick up your pen from the corner of the room
I want to go with you, to chase after you. I want to lie beside you and draw the same lines on my skin you did. I settle for a little less. Perpendicular lines that last forever, to remind me of what I could never forget anyway. 


My life joins with yours one final time, then I open the drain, and watch the last of you flow away from me.

Broken Body

Not while my heart still beats
Not while my lungs still draw breath
Not while my bones still hold me upright
Not while my muscles still bear my weight
Not while my skin still keeps me from coming apart at the seams
Not while my mind still thinks but
One
Sane
Thought

I will not love you
I will not let you into my heart
I will not let you break apart its ventricles
I will not let you cave in its atria
I will not let you tear open its veins
I will not let you rend its arteries
From end
To end

I will not
A thousand times I say I will not
But I do
A thousand times I know I do

I love you
I love you while you poison my mind
I love you while you weaken my body
I love you while you pull the breath from my lungs
I love you while you aim the rifle
I love you while you break my heart

Break my heart
Hasten its pace until it breaks apart
Heavy its load until it caves in
Heal it then rend and tear it anew

Open my heart open my veins open my every compartment until love spills out inexorably like blood finally finding its escape through a gunshot to the chest straight through the heart

I am a soldier
Shot in this war my heart wages
I am a casualty
Fallen on this battlefield called love

You are the bullet wounds
Bleeding me out as I lie alone
You are the bandages
Keeping me alive against all odds

We are this war
And I am a soldier
But I don't die here
Don't die in the battle
Don't die on the hospital bed
Don't die by the hand of my enemy

I am weakened poisoned breathless and broken
But I don't die here

And I will not love you
Even though I do
And I will fight for you
Even though I fight against you
Because I don't die here
Because you deserve more than that
Even though you break my heart
Even though it was you

You pulled the trigger

Looking Back at the Future

I'm sorry is not enough
It never is but this time especially

I ruined things for you
If only a little bit
But that merits I'm sorry
It merits not enough

In other words
It doesn't merit enough
In other words

I'm sorry is too much
It always is but this time especially

I didn't know how upset you were then so I couldn't say I'm sorry
I shouldn't know how upset you were now so I can't say I'm sorry
You probably don't want an apology so I shouldn't say I'm sorry
You definitely don't want to hear from me so I can't say I'm sorry

In other words
I won't say I'm sorry
In other words

I won't say goodbye
Even though it is
Because I won't say anything
And you won't say anything

And we'll keep not saying anything
And then we won't think anything
And then we won't be anything
To each other

I guess that's okay
I guess that's goodbye
I guess that's too much
I guess that's not enough
I guess that's I'm sorry
I guess I said it

New

My heart is a flier flapping its wings
And I teach it how to flit and flutter
At some fleeting new flight or fling
To flee an old flame still flickering

Finally free from frivolous feelings
Finally fond falsehoods fade
Finally forgetting fights
Finally forgone
Forever

New
New name
New nervousness
New novocaine
New noose
New nothing

This is exactly the same
The same nervous flutter of my heart
The same feelings killing my pain
The same fights bringing it back
The same nothing

Find as many people as I want
With new names
Love as many ways as I want
With new names
Write as many poems as I want
With new names

In a moment I knew
This cannot be new
Always I knew
Nothing can be new

Life (This I Believe)

       This. This is worthless. This is pointless. This is useless. This is terrifying. This is terrible. This is complete and utter bullshit. This is never ever ever ever going to change. This I believe.

      There's more truisms about it than you can say in it. Life's not fair, shit happens, life's what you make it, everything happens for a reason, c'est la vie, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We have so many sayings about how life is so difficult to deal with but as soon as someone decides they're done with it we tell them the exact opposite just so they won't quit. Why the hell do we believe it matters to us?     Why the hell do we believe we have any say whatsoever in anyone's lives but our own. This I believe, everyone's right to live entails a right to die.

      That's what makes it so terrible. But it's a choice, like anything else. It's all about choices, every moment of every day of every life is a choice. The choice to keep living, or die trying. The choice to say something or stay silent. The choice to care about others or to selfishly look out only for yourself. The choice to stand up take ownership and live the life no one else can or to be passive and let your life just waste itself. This I believe, life is a series of choices and every single one is important. And because of that people overthink everything, so intent on making the "right choice." But here's the thing, no one makes the right choices; because this I believe, there are no right choices.

      That's what makes it so terrifying. No do overs, no mulligans, no repeats, no retries. One and done. Everything you do changes your life permanently. Even if people don't remember what you did, what you said, who you stood by. They'll remember how it made them feel. Loved, appreciated, accepted. Or despised, disdained, discarded. They'll remember, but life will not. This I believe, nothing lasts forever. In fact, nothing lasts at all.

      That's what makes it so useless, pointless, worthless. Everything-less. Meaningless. Or is it? So what if nothing lasts? So what if there are no right choices? So what if people can just quit? So what if life exists? It does, people don't, choices are made anyway, and memories last, at least to us. People may not matter to life, but life matters to people. Because if it doesn't what does? This I believe. This is all we've got. This is something that matters.

An Open Letter to my Fears

Why?

Why did you make me do it

Waste my years

Push them away

...why?

I stood back

Because of you

Never took a risk

Never took a chance

Never to care and love

But I cared too much

Because of you

Held too close

Held too tight

Held to suffocate and smother

You are a part of me

What the hell is your problem with me

What the hell did you intend to do to me

What the hell

I am consumed by you

How could you hurt what you are

How could you hurt the one who listens

How could you

...why?

Hate/Love

I love how you hate me
I hate how you don't love me

I hate how we argue
How you throw away my love
Then I hate you
But I still love you
I hate that

I love how we just talk
But I also love how we don't
I also hate that
Because that's when you say hate
But your tone says not-love

I hate how you don't love me

I hate putting love into poems
It reminds me of love I hate
Reminds me of loving the hate
I love how I hate these poems

Like I love how you hate me

I knew when I read it
Read another hateful love poem
And in it I heard your lovely voice
But it wasn't talking to me

I hate how you love him not me

So I make you hate me
I tear at the insecurities you trusted me with
Because I thought that trust was something like love
But it wasn't so I used it like hate
I used it to tear you apart

I love how you hate me
Because in the end I want you to care
Even if it's not in the way I want

Way With Words

You always said that words were beautiful that mine were that I had a way with words but you never wanted the meanings I wrote how I feel so I threw it away because you took away my words I have no meaning no more words to speak to you about anything beautiful is wasted on you could not care is wasted on the same old meanings in new ways new words to put away the way I feel about you isn't anything beautiful isn't because there's no way for words to speak words wasted away my way with words has gone away

Little

A short little poem for short little you
It only takes a word or two

A cute little poem for cute little you
For things you say to get me through

A sweet little poem for sweet little you
So never doubt my words are true

A wonder filled poem for wonderful you
Forever you're my little muse

Eyes

Your eyes are the city I get lost in
Your voice is the roadmap showing me every highlight
You laugh is the fleeting glimpse of the sunset skyline

Your eyes are the ocean I've been tossed in
Each wave makes time slower
Each wave I feel lower
Each wave you grow colder
Don't say that it's over

They say eyes are the window to the soul
But I say they are a mirror for the heart
And home is where the heart is
So that city that ocean those eyes that reflected my heart are my home

They say you can't go home again
But I say you can't truly leave
So I look for another city another ocean new eyes to see myself
And they all remind me of you

A pretense of you is not enough
A bitter ocean is not the same
A foreign city is not my home
A reflection in new eyes is not as bright

I need your reflecting gaze
I need your eyes
I need you

Drive

Most animals are driven by need
Eat
Fight
Reproduce
Survive

Humans are different
We are driven by want
Taste
Resolve
Love
Live

I don't want to live
But still
I don't want to die

I don't want to love or be loved
But still
I don't want to be alone

I don't want to resolve arguments and solve problems
But still
I don't want to be angry at the world

I don't want to taste or eat or fulfill any of my real needs
But still
I don't want to let myself just fade away

I don't want anything
But still
I don't want there to be nothing

This is not a valley I can climb out of
This is not a mountain I can fall off of
This is not anything
This is an endless abyss with not a single other thing in sight
This is apathy

I am apathy

I am nothing

For You

Sometimes I lie awake
And wonder
When I stopped caring

For all of this
For these things that matter
For the things I will take with me into the future
For anything
Except
For you

You the one who I care about more than anything
You the one who makes me smile just by talking to me
You the one who makes my heart hurt any time you're anything but joyful
Like you so often are

I'm tearing myself apart
For you
For us
For a mirage a reflection an illusion an image
For nothing

I'm throwing everything away
Drifting away
Slipping away
Wasting away
For you

You who I never wanted to admit I love
You who I couldn't say that I love
You who I wish I didn't love
I pour out this worthless pointless wretched empty love
For you

Always
Forever
Anything
Everything

For you