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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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