This will be my final poem
to close this poetry session
that has actually been quite refreshing.

In order to stay alive and thrive
through life, you need to constantly
revive your mind. I’ve come to understand
that modern-day culture is suffocating.
So I abandoned TV for poetry.
Sports for books.
Radio for guitar.
Indoors for outside.

I try my best to administer CPR
to myself every few days,
so my heart will continue to beat, despite
the society surrounding me
that aims to dry out my dreams.

The artist inside me is constantly dying.
Even though I feed it consistently with
creativity, it still can’t find the room it needs
to breathe within this debilitating country.

How’s an artist supposed to survive in a world
where art seems as though it will be killed
by rap, and cable, and superficial needs.
I cling to some hope that we, the minority,
will someday recapture this land of opportunity
and better suit it to fit our needs.

I watch as the day fades.
The space surrounding me is darkening.
It’s as if a black hole has come for me,
quite hungry,
And now it’s swallows delightfully.

Thank goodness for my computer screen.
It’s the only thing that will ever save me
from the destruction of darkness.

My maturity was reached after a lavish upbringing
in a well-renowned, gorgeous, stuck-up town,

where everyone looks around judgmentally,
hoping to find someone or thing
they can mock.  
A town that believes they are better than most,
with kids that coast through childhood
with never a fear of a hungry tummy,
or an empty closet.
I do admit, I was one of these,
but not to the extremity
of strictly Abercrombie
stitched into my sleeves.
I was able to breathe free of conformity.
Or so I childishly thought.

I was never free of conformity.
There is fact and fiction
etched into my mind, regarding what I need to do
with my gosh-darn life.
But which is which,
and how do I un-stitch
every little tiny bit of information
that was put inside my mind
before the time I even reached puberty.

College. Job. Home. Family.
Just like that.
It’s easy, just don’t think twice.
Close your eyes and live your life.

It was easy for a while.
Then I thought twice
and my eyes snapped open wide.

The image of the world my parents created for me
became tainted with disgust.

an expensive new car every three years?

what’s wrong with driving a piece of junk

until it no longer switches gears.

Old ideas embedded into my being
began to grey, then rust, then fade.
And writing took it’s place.

Now I sit, on my own,
a few towns away.
I some-what broke free from Glastonbury
and it’s shallow, superficial ways.
Where to go from here,
I have absolutely no idea.
I temporarily put school on hold,
in hopes that it will help my mind unfold
and reveal what I should do with this life
that is mine, only mine.
I’m finally alive, I had my awakening,
and now the world I face is scary.

Maybe eyes-closed is how your better off,
But I can’t take back that second thought.
I have myself convinced,
Most-likely foolishly,
That if I follow my writing,
It’ll bring me where I want to be.

I feel the urge to write this poem,
yet I have no idea what it should be about.
Sometimes during spring,
it’ll rain for weeks and weeks,
preventing you from frolicking through the streets.
Then when the rain abruptly halts,
and a rainbow shoots across the sky,
you scramble outside.
But only to become paralyzed -
for you’ve forgotten what it’s like
to be under a sky that’s clear and bright.
And you just don’t know what to do.

The rain in my mind has ceased.

Now my thoughts don’t know which
direction they should move there feet.
What to write, what to write -
Endless possibilities.

The time has come: my paralysis
has met it’s defeat.
Now it’s clear that from here,
I shall write anything I please.

My tired eyes beg my mind
to rest for a moment’s time.
This may be a fight that I can’t
Win.

My fingers won’t give in.
They’re digging into the computer keys
hoping to excavate
a level of my mind
that I have yet to find.

Is this archeological site
more bland than I’ve always
thought?
There’s no point in digging
if there’s nothing to dig up.

It’s three AM.
My mind is too dim.

Twenty seconds ago,
I had a revelation
regarding what exactly
my life could be missing.

I had it once, when I was younger
than I am today. It was my sense
of optimism.

I couldn’t tell you exactly when
optimism slipped from
the grip of my finger-tips.
I remember I had it once, and not that long ago,
but now, I only vaguely remember
it as a distant disposition.

I’ve been looking for it
late at night when it’s only
my computer and I.

For moments at a time,
I’m captivated by it -
words begin to flow.
Then pessimism step right back in
and with one measly blow,
changes the world back to
all I’ve ever really known.

Great Art is made through
great inspiration.
If only I could find out where
inspiration is stationed.

He used to be in the books I would read,
under the enigmatic,
bright, blue sky.
And he’d shine in with the pounding
rays, passing through my UV lens,
settling deep within
my eyes.

For a while, he was my friend.

Now it seems it’s all been fried,
and the only place inspiration can be found,
is within the thought of
loosing it.
Through pity-poems like these
that have me fallen to my knees,
searching for my
muse -
a pathetic attempt at seizing control
of my own being.

What are these words I’m re-reading?
A bunch of whiny shit.
It doesn’t fit. I hate it.
I hate this.
All I do is piss and moan
and groan.
I need a more active approach.
Good by pissing and moaning,
you were only ever a waste of time.

Oh, and hello optimism.
I think I just had a vision,
and life seems better with your disposition.

-2010

    I haven’t written anything for a while, and I feel as if it has taken a major toll on my mental stability.  If what I theorize is correct, then I need to write in order to free the persistent thoughts that tenant my mind and refuse to leave.  While currently on the path to expanding my mental capacity, I feel that it would moronic to state that there is such a thing as having too many thoughts. I do believe the last statement to be true though.  Writing is a form of release.  It helps me get out everything I think, and formalize my thoughts.  Without it, my mind clogs up like a backed up toilet until I finally explode.  There are sometimes I wish I could put a cap on my thinking.  There are sometimes I wish I could be as absent minded as many in our society and be content with sitting on the computer, downloading new rap songs, and spending my days consumed with reality TV.  The problem is, none of that suffices me.  Television bores me.  Many things bore me.  People in general bore me.  The tedious processes of daily life by societies standards bore me.
    I have a need.  A consistently stubborn need that is always ripping at my mind, fighting it’s way through, even when I try my best to sedate it.  It is a need to free myself from standard society.  A need that involves leaving everyone behind and truly finding myself.  Figuratively speaking of course.  It isn’t as if I have lost my body. I’m fairly certain that I am using it to type right now.  I’ve lost something more important.  I couldn’t tell you how long it’s been gone, but it’s been a while now.  It’s my sense of self.  My sense of worth.  Who it is I really am.  What it is I really want.  Everything I need in order to be everything I want to be.  But what is it I want to be? An English teacher? A writer? A guitarist?
    What I don’t get is how I’m not content.  I’m doing everything the right way and living life as I am guided to do.  I am currently undergoing the painstakingly boring process of securing myself an education. I work almost full time and keep close ties with friends and family. I have goals. I have aspirations.  I have a fairly certain idea of what it is I plan to do with my life.  So what exactly is my problem?
    I believe I am suffering from a disease of the mind that some people go through.  There are so many things I want to learn and so many places I want to go.  I want to experience the world in a way that few others do.  I need to travel. Of course everyone wants to travel, but I don’t think many crave it the way I do. It’s not a want, but a need.  It may be silly to claim such an idea, but that is how I truly feel. It’s not just a desire; it’s a need.  My mind needs it like my body needs water, and without it I feel as though over time my mind will dehydrate and slowly dry out and die. 
    It is a perplexing thought that there is more to life than what I’ve grown to know.  There is so much more to life than this, and it kills me that I have to wait to experience it.  If I had the choice right now, I would leave for a year, maybe even two, and encounter the world as I don’t know it.  Learn things. Conform to different cultures.  Read Hemingway while relaxing on a gondola in Venice, speaking Italian to strangers, eating pasta and pizza, on a search for my long lost soul.  The one that I don’t know if I’ve ever known.  The one I know is out there, somewhere.  Waiting for me.  Waiting for me to become everything I’m meant to be so we can finally be each other’s company.

    When I witness the world around me, and many of the people within it, it only serves to further focus me more toward my future goals and aspirations.
    All around, everywhere I go, and almost everyone I see, confuses me.  You have such a short time to live, don’t you truly want to be everything you could possibly be? There are those that never do, and those that never try, and those who like to sit and watch the time fly by.
    I want to do what I love, and I want to love what I do. And i want the same for you.  There’s plenty of time, but we have to start soon.  If we wait too much longer, it’ll only bring doom.  
    You want some advice? Try taking it one step at a time.  At first, try to stick with one difficult rhyme, and the cadence will smooth the confusion just fine. It’ll be a beautiful experience - like music to your ears for the very first time.
    When you’re content with being fine, it’s time to move onto great, and this is when you kick to the curb any notion of fate.  Your destiny’s yours, so do as you please.  Pick up a new hobby, even climb a few trees.  There’s no one beyond here who will push you to fall.  Just always remember that you control it all.
    Do it one step at a time, but never stop moving because slow and steady wins the race, but slow and inconsistent does not.  Don’t go to fast either because you might trip and fall, and ill tell you right now that is no fun at all.  It’s hard to accept that you have messed up and fallen, and you’ll sit right there on the ground until you make your way up to try again.  That is one of the hardest parts, so head my warning and try to avoid it from the very start.
    There are only so many hours in a day - 24 or so, and plenty of other obligations that will mess up your flow.  There’s school, and there’s work, and all your friends as well.  And eating, and drinking, and sleeping. Oh hell.
    One of my only pet peeve’s is wasting my time.  Time is too precious to do absolutely nothing with it.  You may want to know what I consider a waste of time and that is anything that’s not stimulating my mind.  For starters, let’s see, how about reality TV?  What am I taking away from watching strangers living together in a house, and getting drunk on a constant basis, or watching the putrid lifestyle of a grossly overpaid celebrity whose material needs should make everyone sick, not envious.
    There are plenty more insufficient ways to spend your life, but it is a time waster just talking about them.  So, let’s move on to some stimulators.  Just to name a few: reading, and writing, and poetry too.  Music’s nice also, but not just the listening of it, the creation as well.  Taking poetry and making it a song, and eventually being able to add guitar parts.      
    When you get your life stable and can handle some challenges, pick a few goals and accomplish them.  Then you’re done with those, pick a few more.  When I’m done with guitar, I may pick up a camera, or maybe a spatula, or even some running shoes.  I’m on the path to success and the path to expand the capacity of my mind.  This path also includes the path to self love.  You need to love yourself before you love anyone else, and that for sure is my ultimate goal.
    Self actualization is a consistently strenuous exercise of your mind, until you always feel just fine.  I would say I’m almost halfway there, but I’m not scared for the next half to come; I’m excited and intrigued if anything at all.  I just really hope that I don’t fall so hard that I can’t get up and try again.

-2011

My mind aches from Stress taking a
spiked metal bat and
beating it against my brain.

I wish I could wake up tomorrow
to find out he was jailed for
breach of peace and domestic violence.
Unfortunately, that won’t be so -
right now, Stress is untouchable.

He can beat me, but I can’t beat him.

All night long, my cat has been emitting
cry after cry - extended meows
with syllables long drawn out.

He whines, and moans, and hisses.
Upset that the freedom he once knew,
lay just beyond his reach
through window panes and screens.

After escaping today, he got a taste
of the life he once knew -
as a roaming cat that raised himself on the streets.

They are torturous sounds,
and remind me of my own silent cries.
The only difference -
I crave a freedom I’ve never known.

I want my taste of being outside.

School awaits me.
My fiendish foe.
The only one I’ve truly known.
The tedious teachings
-regulated and required-
steal away bits of my soul
and end up filling the hole
I so desperately want to fill,
with nothing of importance.
But how else would I acquire
that which I want in life?
How else would I aspire?
It is true, education is dire.
I just hope it won’t burn out my fire.

There’s a few more things I need to do
before I settle down to drown
my thoughts, and waste space in my brain,
with tedious facts, useless knowledge,
and a headache from the strain.

First off, I need a cigarette,
but since I just finished that one,
I guess I need one more.
The nicotine helps to motivate me.
It gently sings through my veins,
settling me, as it’s voice reverberates
within my body, whispering harmony
with promises that I will succeed.

Yet lately,
I’m not so sure what that means.
The tantalizing word of success,
is beginning to wreak havoc
on implanted ideas of life expectancy
that I’m expected to meet.

A college degree.
A gas-guzzling SUV.
Children to complete a comfy-cozy family,
living “the dream” in a town like Glastonbury.

Rules and regulations.
Extensive SAT preparation.
A bored police station.
I hate this sheltered land of expectation.

My white-picket fence is slowly catching fire.

And i don’t feel the urge to run for water.

Tonight’s probably not the best of nights
to engage in an attempt to resolve
my poetry plight.

3:22 AM just arrived -
crash landing on my already-tired mind.
These fingers shouldn’t be doing
anything other than
tapping letters to inspire
ideas on a research project,
that is nowhere near complete.
Or better yet,
that I’ve hardly yet to start.

Being due tomorrow (which is actually today),
the deadline lurks close by -
taunting me, with it’s evil eye.
I stare it down, without a hint of fear,
and it slowly backs away.

While my enemy may be sly, I’d think it’d know
by now, that it’s never been a competitor
to my procrastinating mind.
When this predator finally sneaks up on me,
it will ignite a bloody massacre.
The end result: a decent enough score. 

lol thank you! i love your tumblr pic ;)