As I Put My Elbow On The Table And The Hand Under My Mastoid Bone And Grab At My Short Hair I Stop And

Solving Problems

Solving a problem

is about finding

the right tool.

Sometimes

You have the right tool

but forgot it.

Sometimes

You saw wrong

And you grabbed the hammer

When what you needed was a wrench.

Sometimes

You simply don't have it

And need to go to the store

To get the tool you need.

Sometimes

That tool is people.

New ideas, new methods, new tricks.

Everyone else has so much to teach us.

And sometimes

I stressed so much

I forgot the simple solution

and cried myself to sleep.

And maybe

maybe sometimes

there just isn't a perfect solution at all

and I have to just deal with it.

Or maybe I'm using a voltmeter and car battery

When what I actually need is a hand.

Overachieving

Here's the test I scored well on.

Here's the competition I won an award in.

Is it enough for you? Will I be allowed happiness?

Can I talk to human beings again and pretend I am one of them?

The past year, no, two years, no, five, no -

The past over-a-decade has been nothing but more

so much more that whenever someone says "burnout is bad!"

I think inside, "I lived it; I breathed it; I became it; sounds like you just have a skill issue."

And I'm a terrible person for thinking that. If it hurt for me, it'll hurt for them.

But god damn if I have something else I'm proud of taken away from me again.

I come back with a 95. You ask, "why isn't it 96? 97? 100?" Or maybe you don't care. Just see that it's an 'A' and forget it by tomorrow.

I come back saying I did well. You ask, "and how exactly? What did you do? What did everyone else think?"

And I tell you because I'm a good child and I'm still that naive pushover who thinks the world is good and you are still family

And inside I pack up another bottle of anger and disappointment of various kinds of both you and myself.

And in the end I've had enough. You taught me how to shorten my fuse, and I've tried to make it last a little longer but you burn so hot.

I tell you to shut up and wait for the results. And inside I think but don't say: "You fucking asshole. Piece of shit that can't bother to be proud of their own child for fucking once."

So tired of your shit. So tired of being a good person to you because you're just an ass and you can't change that.

So tired of pushing forwards all the time. So tired of being pushed forwards all the time. Can't do it myself like a real human being.

So tired of being this mess who can't pull themselves together like a normal person. So tired of procrastinating and crying and sitting here wallowing in the exact same cesspool of angst.

So tired of doing everything wrong and right and being the perfect idiot child and pushing forwards and wading back and the whole fucking thing.

I'm just so, so fucking tired.

I Don't Deserve A Thing

I don't deserve to be happy, I'm just another useless fool,

Doing nothing and nothing and nothing till the end of time,

and if saving the someone took 10 hours of my life and I wouldn't be noticed,

then I'd probably just let them die whatever death out of laziness.

I don't deserve to be sad, I've been relatively lucky,

I am fed, with a roof over my head, constant electricity, more clothes than I know what to do with, and the sky is blue,

and it doesn't matter that I was beaten and yelled at and traumatized,

because everyone else had it much worse and got over it, so why can't I?

I don't deserve to be wanted, I'm not supposed to be wanted,

Anybody who wants me is greatly appreciated and surely a fool,

for anybody who could love this person with this face is a miracle,

a miracle of idiocy and foolishness and complete lack of judgement.

I don't deserve to be hated, why would you hate me,

it brings you nothing and I'm not even worthy of hate,

instead please ignore me, ignore everything I say,

for the silent treatment is worse than the loudest slur.

I don't deserve to talk, I don't deserve to be known,

I don't deserve to be heard louder than the people who starve,

or the people who bleed, or the people who lose, or the people who die,

I don't deserve to deserve at all, anything in this lucky, cruel world.

Change and the Future

if I'm going to do anything I'm going to make sure I can't be forced to go back.

It's great to go from poor to rich, but it's hell to go from rich to poor.

To taste the fruits of victory and then be dragged by the foot right back down to hell?

No thank you! I would rather not eat at all than eat exactly once.

Anyways I am already at rock bottom and have been for years. What more is new?

Oh, do not get me wrong, haha! I'm not saying I have no hope for the future or whatnot.

I'm just being very careful. "Risk-avoidant?" Yes, that sounds like a good term.

I will reach for the grapes only when I have stacked up enough chairs and boxes to reach for it easily.

When I jump, I'm going to grab the whole goddamn vine, not just one or two measly grapes.

I'm a greedy little motherfucker, isn't that right? I ask for little, I want for little, but what I do want for, I wait for the right time and grab hold of it forever.

Anyways the future is only real if you grasp it and hold on tight, and I'm not going to jump and risk a broken leg for nothing.

A Tree Falls

A tree falls in the forest.

Nobody is nearby. Nobody to hear.

Does it even make a sound?

A tree falls in the forest.

It will impact the ecosystem

even more than it impacts the ground.

A lighthouse stops its beacon.

A ship nearby is lost and weary.

It cannot see. It runs aground.

A man dies alone in his hut.

He was kind, he was friendly, he was good.

At his funeral, no friends of his could be found.

But one kind lady far away might remember.

He had helped her find her way, a long time ago.

And so his memory, perhaps, will be skyward bound

as the man who loved everybody but himself.

Notice

I think I'm going to stop posting poetry. I've had enough. The depression hits exactly the same as always and I can't come up with anything new. The words are splayed out in front of you all - they will allow you to peer into my very soul - and there's nothing more for my poems to tell you, no arrangement of words that brings anything new to the table. Anything I make now will be rehashings of everything in the previously, and I don't think I can come up with anything new or good.

Good day to all.

May whatever God is up there see the insincerity of my penance.

Edit: I may continue posting cryptic shit because I'm eccentric like that fr.

There was a young man from Peru

Whose limericks stopped at line two

There Once Was A Child

There once was a boy who hated himself

for he was afraid of punishment, afraid of failure

so he looked to the world for happiness and joy

and only found short-lived self-deprecating jokes

There once was a boy who thought he was happy

but every day when he came home

tired of his happy clownish facade

he sat down in his chair and thought

as both the jester and the king

in his own court of delusion

There once was a man who knew what went wrong

who hated those who made him go oh so wrong

but inside, deep down, the same man that knew

also knew it was unfair to hate those who wronged him

so the boy kept it inside, the smoldering rage

for he was not a man yet, not in body nor in mind

There once was a boy who convinced himself

that he was happy enough to live in the moment

nevermind the man in his head who told him

about all the things he did wrong, or the wrongs done to him

he was content to live in the moment with the joy of friendship

until that friendship was shattered in every single way

There was once a boy who loved those who wronged him

for he was full of that childish love to give to those undeserving

until the young man burst out with the greatest anger

to speak his mind and wield his fist in the most primal way

for those who had wronged him had aged too much to wrong again

and it was now his turn to wrong them, and assert his own power

but those who had wronged him had aged too much to wrong again

and so the child stopped him, for the child was naive,

and the child still loved all.

There is now only a child who wallows in anger and doubt

about who he is, why he is, and what he should do

who had all the love to give others but found none at all from them

and can no longer love for the sake of love

but only for the hope that someone will love him back

There is now only a man who is thoroughly dissappointed

at the weakness of the child and the perpetuation of failure

who explained how to win as the child chose to lose

for he was only a child who had never felt love

and naively gave away his soul along with his love

and these two continue to bicker and fight

about who was right and who was wrong

and as always only time will tell

only after it is already too late

I Need to Move

I need to move.

I need to run.

I don’t know why.

Maybe to run from my past.

Maybe to run towards my future.

Maybe to run to beat my enemies, who are now old and weak.

I need to fight.

I don’t know why.

Maybe to assert my own superiority.

Maybe to assert my own self-defense capability.

Maybe to practice for when I am to fight my enemies on equal ground for the first and last time.

I need to move.

I don’t know why.

Maybe to run towards the future.

Maybe to fight the evils of my past.

Maybe to finally feel proud and confident of my body, of my self, for the first time.

I need to move.

God Will Weep

God will weep

for the souls of the damned

and the sins of the holy

when I shove my fist through his chest

God will weep

for the poor and suffering

and the mistakes of the greats

when I kick his corpse off the cliff

God will weep

for the sins he has committed

and the suffering of the good

when I shove my foot through his skull

God will weep

for the wrongs he has done to me

and the defects he made me with

when I throw his ashes into the wastewater collection plant

God will weep

because when I find his house

and break in the door

he fucking better cry.