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

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

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 

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

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.

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.

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.