Now
Monotony sets in as the days pass by. I do the things I did yesterday, and forget the things I forgot yesterday.
In the passing now that never ends, I reflect, a thing I’ve shirked for many long days. And a small solemn tear barely touches my cheek.
What have I become to let these days go by so? In my lack of reflection, my lack of care I accept the mediocrity that is the me of now.
In the passing now, I hope to find a cause for change and yet upon that single tear, I gave seldom a care.
But in the passing now, I do dream of a different now, a future where I become the me I long to be.
November 28, 2010 at 6:38 pm | Lifepost | No comments
New School
I thought about the poem I submitted here the other day and figured I should at least sort out the bare threads of context so as to clothe the raw rhyming lines of “The Place I Left.”
August 5, 2010, I took a bus that was not a mile from my house nor even half of mile from my house but perhaps about 200 feet from my house at the entrance to my neighborhood. The school this bus took me to was only 4 miles away from my home, less than an hour’s walk.
I board the bus and only three turns later I’m stepping out onto the asphalt, the bus lot of a new school.
The bus ride is short but dull. I am surrounded by indistinct chatter and an unanimated bus driver. I recall my old bus driver, a very nice lady who aged well and knew the names of all her passengers. A very nice lady who, like myself, was an artist. In the days past, I’d sit in the front of the bus just to talk with my old bus driver, the very nice lady who would smile, spoil us like sweet little kids, and look at my artwork.
August 5. 8:15 AM. I’m apparently late to school this very first day. Or very nearly late. Class would start in 5 minutes. I rush through the halls; 5 minutes time is nary enough for a lost student. But it’s the first day and teachers are lenient with tardies.
In my homeroom, I recognize some faces. These faces are the ones I left when two years ago I chose to attend a “magnet” high school 20 miles away from my house. These faces are nothing but faces and names to me though, and to them, I am likewise nothing but a name and face.
Same indistinct chattering steals the air in homeroom. The hallways, too, give way to the clutter of small talk as teenagers reunite with the friends they didn’t get to hang out with over summer.
A sense of superficial loneliness engulfs me. Something about being a face in the crowd, detached from the network around me.
I smile a little at my foolish fickle thoughts. I smile a little at the people who pass by me and turn me even a sideways glance. Amongst the people I pass, there’s the occasional acknowledgment of recognition. From those good old Middle School days.
I meet my teachers. They’re a nice lot of people. I’m a transfer student, so I don’t have my transcript. I get to skip out on the part where teachers, supposedly only glancing for prerequisites, judge me by my past grades.
I decide I’ll just mindlessly smile and hope I make some new friends.
October 5. 3:25 PM. School is out, and I am walking in a hallway toward my bus. I decided to skip Latin Club today, in spite of the weekly Tuesday meetings I chose to attend. Maybe I should have attended, but I chose my course in a passing jiffy.
Two full months now I’ve gone to this new school. Academically, some things are different here, but most things that matter are the same. I did a decent job of blending into the crowd though I’ve made some friends. Or really, rather, I’ve been polite to many and received the reciprocation.
The classes are a cakewalk, but it’s more my scheduling than anything. AP curriculum doesn’t change by the school, regardless of academic reputation.
I checked out a few books from the school library the other day and figured I’d do some studying of my own. So reading Watchmen, the comic book, I reach my consensus:
Maybe my old school had a reputation for being more academically competitive than this one, but my actions rather than environment have always been the primary factor in my success.
October 5, 2010 at 5:49 pm | Lifepost | No comments
Best Friend
I don’t have many true friends and never have. I sit and listen to a guy from my class. He IMs me.. asks my grade. Tells me his grade. Starts talking about what he’s going to do to raise it.
I listen.
Someone who’s done this for a long time tells me one day about his crush. I give him encouragement. He wants to ask her out; I say “Go for it, man.”
I listened.
I tire of this pattern. I worry about my own thoughts… the same ‘I’-figure that every other person in the world is busy worrying about.
I continue to live in my world, with my own projects. I talk to some of the same people a bit every now and then.
One day, one of them asks me if I am his friend.
I don’t want to respond. I sit silently, look away. After prodding, I say, “No, not really.”
He seems disappointed. I didn’t want to sound so cold, but the truth of the matter was:
It’s possible to be a friend without having a friend.
And yet if I’d set my standards for friendship so high, I’ll never have friends. How could I, one of many in this world, expect any other single person who is too occupied with his own worries to care enough about me to want to… really be my friend?
Once upon a time, I met a person who was interested in knowing me, at least a little, and as I pretended to stare out a window he asked me what I was thinking.
Lack of ambition takes many forms in life. Insecurity takes many forms. The feeling of inadequacy becomes a recurring theme.
I knew I could never have expected anyone to care, yet I don’t give a proper response to this question. I say “I don’t know.”
And for a moment, I didn’t know. Or I knew too much, swarmed with possibilities of ways to respond.
So it’s not as if I didn’t want to make a friend. It’s not as if I wanted to close myself out to the world when all this time I mentally complained about the selfish thoughts of those around me.
But I did. That’s just the way things happen.
A few days ago(around the time when school ended) I got an IM that was something like:
“I asked you a question at the beginning of this semester. Did the answer change?”
This was from the guy who asked if I was his friend.
I never responded.
May 24, 2010 at 8:13 pm | Lifepost | No comments
My Claim to Selfishness
These days I notice I do not read, but I always choose to write. These little poems that I can spit out in 15 minutes or less, short lines of rhyme or whatever you call it that capture a moment’s thought.
I can sit there and write a huge post on nothing but that I am writing to waste time, and yet I can be more interested in re-reading this post I wrote than in reading some great author’s old work of literature.
I can stare at my screen and look through all my old poems quickly and at a blink and think “Yeah, I remember why I wrote that. Heh.” And to me it’ll be the best thing in the world, a memory.
And yet I won’t read the things that some other poor adolescent soul shouts out into the world on a blog; I am disinterested in the diaries of those who I do not know, yet I keep my own.
It’s my claim to selfishness that I write about myself, stuck in my own bubble of self, uninterested in others, forever committing self-indulgent acts which do not benefit the better good of humanity.
May 15, 2010 at 10:51 am | Lifepost | No comments
I don’t know
I don’t know what I’m doing right now. I think I’m going crazy and falling into perpetual weirdness. I think I’m living in a dream or pretending to be high. I think I’m inspired to do nothing and gaze at the sky.
I don’t know what this blog is because all I ever seem to do here is…
…over-dramatize life.
March 12, 2010 at 7:13 pm | Lifepost | No comments
Celery Sticks
I’d fancy making a movie that had a ton of inside jokes that only my best of friends could ever understand.
I’d fancy creating fancy symbolism and drawn out metaphors or similes that you’d never figure out completely until you read my mind.
I’d make it the sort of movie that only I’d ever like, the sort of movie that puts a smile on my own face.
I’d fancy that I am my own artist and the creator of my own, well-marketed luxuries.
….
I’d fancy one day I look and see that the world is more than just me.
I’d fancy I’m speaking to a thousand ears and a million eyes.
I’d fancy I’m telling them the secrets that enriched my life.
I’d fancy I understand their endless strife.
….
One day I’d wake up and understand the people,
The people in the world who I so often ignore.
The ones who I am an artist for.
Because to live for only you and only yourself
Keeps your story on the shelf.
March 11, 2010 at 9:52 pm | Lifepost | No comments
Words I’ll Only Ever Write
I think one morning how easily friendships break. For all their time and memories, and how much I make of all those little things in life.
But then I remember the truth, that I was the one who tried to not care, who, prideful and socially inadequate, ran away from my problems by being confusing, insincere, and critical. I was one who was never the friend.
And yet I can stand to be so sad that I receive my just desserts; an endless turmoil of regret and insecurity that drives an unfocused mind insane.
I was the one who set the ground for a superficial friendship and yet you stayed and smiled so kindly, the good person you were. You acted as if you forgave though I know you never forgot, at least in those days.
I walk through a crowd of people I am not interested in, because they’re not interested in me, to be honest. And this is how selfish I am.
And I want to say sorry for the person I was, the rejection of your kindness I gave. I want to say sorry, but I know my sorry is superficial and clingy because it’s too late for regret.
I have wishes that I could run away to some far off place and forget everything that ever was and start off some friendship anew, but cleansing away the imperfections of your life isn’t always so easy.
So I try again and say this time.
Thank you for being there for me when I felt alone in the world.
Thank you for being tolerant of all my insecurities.
Thank you for listening when I know you weren’t interested.
Thank you for being the friend I never deserved nor earned.
Thank you for the happiness and life lessons learned.
I may never find in my life another chance so great as I had then to make a true friend, but I should be satisfied nonetheless for I was lucky you were there.
And yet, all in all, you’ll never know my thoughts as I silence them from you, and you’ll never know my heart as I shun you in fear and shame.
These are the words I’ll only ever write as I’ve only ever written so many other words within my short, short life.
But I imagine if you were to ever read these words or hear my thoughts,
I’d tell you then to go far in life and be the beautiful soul you were meant to be
And never let false friends who acted the way I did put you down.
March 6, 2010 at 10:08 am | Lifepost | No comments
Ruins
I visited my old IRC Pokemon clan again today, and it was falling apart. The leaders were leaving because they were busy. The community was not the family I had known.
It’s funny how things fall apart with time and how all we do is just a constant struggle to keep them together, and when we are tired, we let them go… and things fall apart with time.
It’s funny how I said “Subzero was destined to be the greatest of clans” and how I mentioned my regard for the leaders and the way they handled things.
This was a simple IRC clan on a Pokemon server, but it broke apart like all other things I’ve seen.
Tomorrow I imagine the forevers I’ve imagined myself. Immortality does not come easy, but it’s the only thing worth staying for.
February 22, 2010 at 6:41 pm | Lifepost | No comments
Self Indulgent
This blog.
February 12, 2010 at 6:56 pm | Lifepost | No comments
Dependence
When once upon another day I reread this blog post, I will understand.
It is better to depend less than it is to continue to depend as to depend is to live under the threat of loss.
And yet for all the logic cynicism claims, it is a reaction to emotional stimuli.
February 7, 2010 at 1:12 am | Lifepost | No comments