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lowercase thoughts
another late night, even though i always tell myself “never again...” i’m in a segment of age 22 which feels unexplainable, and not in a teenage angst way. i’m just buried in a situation nobody else is going to be able to fully understand, and i’ve come to grips. really, i have. i would feel awful if i met someone else with two parents simultaneously facing unknown odds with cancer while attempting to last in graduate school, so it’s...; i’d rather not be fully understood. i think the situation is okay, actually. everyone will meet and greet with death one day, and i guess it’s just feeling as if my parents have VIP passes or something that scares me. as an only child, they are my closest human units in the world. i can’t bear to lose them. but. thinking about death made me think about life. i feel like the very existence (using the word “existence” is dangerous because it spurns so many debates that are over my head, but nevertheless...) of a culminating end to life, makes it so that life as a concept has got to be full of meaning. in less complicated syntax, if there is significance in death, there ought to be significance in life. for there to be a purposeful end to this day-to-day business of waking and sleeping...i feel like we’re meant to do some powerful (fill in the blank) in life, while we’re living it. personally, i’ve chosen being as christ-like as possible to be my daily cause and goal (and fail at it wicked painfully everyday, mind you), but if that’s not your’s, i challenge you to find some daily cause. you were woken up on earth for some mysterious reason today, so let’s do something with it. i’m sure it’ll be awesome. even awful things are awesome to some degree. and better things are always sure to come, whether minutes away or decades. my thoughts always travel from introspective to preachy. i guess this will have to end that way too, to be characteristically me. oyasumi (i’m in another japanese phase)
Talking to Yourself
So, as anyone who is reading this knows--which apparently is at least a few people, seeing as that I got a few texts and messages about my last post, which I greatly appreciate and love you all--you know that while I'm self-aware, I'm pretty gloriously indulgent when it comes to my feelings and social media. Like. I could post song lyrics and shit all day--and I definitely used to, until people told me that's generally frowned upon. And I get that. But like sometimes I just really like sharing lyrics and quotes that I think are particularly beautiful...AND I happen to be a little too open bout my feelings.
And end up like this. Anyway, to avoid posting about it on social media, and just as a form of dealing with my hormonal self, I began writing. I wrote a few short plays and a musical in college--which is THE hardest thing I've ever done, and if I ever do again, I'm definitely not doing it with a time limit---and throughout the last two years I've accumulated pages and pages of notes in my phone. Little scribbles of thoughts and emotions I've had, song lyrics, quotes I've loved, voice memos--there's literally a voice memo from new years eve where I woke up, sang into my phone three notes, then went back to sleep. iI's pretty hilarious. When I moved to New York however, I stopped writing for a bit. I had just kind of worn myself out finishing the musical, and that, combined with my life sort of falling into shambles with the move to New York and some personal struggz, I ended up just keeping up with notes and not writing anything of actual substance. Having just finished tour, I met some KILLER people, including my buddy Max (who was my goat-legged BFF in the show), who is an AMAZING musician and writer. So we're getting together and writing some music, etc, and last night I sat down to write some lyrics for an awesome song he wrote. To get some inspiration, I looked over some of my notes for the first time in two years.
Jeeze. It's ASTOUNDING how much people can actually change in a short period of time. I know that's a cliche thing to say, but if you want actual, documented proof of your personal life changing, write shit down, then read it 7 months later. I legitimately couldn't remember writing some of it, and most of it read like it was written by a stranger. Some of it made me laugh, some of it was overwrought, and some of it actually scared me a little--it was hard to believe that just a few months ago I was in such a dark place. Not like dark "I needed someone to keep an eye on me" dark, but just deeply lost. And while that was startling to read, it was also wonderful to realize that I'm not there anymore in the least bit--and if I had to go to such a dark place, at least I turned some of it into something productive. There's one voice memo that's been following me around--an entire song I wrote in about 20 minutes, at about 4 in the morning at what I would describe (dramatically) as my darkest hour. Only about three other people have heard it, and the usual response is "Woah." I know I'll probably re-record it someday, because I actually do like the song a lot in a Glen-Hansard-Sad-Because-She's-In-London-And-Marketa-Won't-Sleep-With-Him sort of way--but not yet. I think with personal and emotional material, there has to be a purpose for letting out that kind of sad into the world, and right now it still feels a little self-serving and pointless. There ain't no darkness without the light, and it's going to need some solid positivity to go along with it to balance it out. So maybe I'll just have to write an album. I've never done that. But I've also never been on Broadway, and that doesn't stop me from trying that daily, so fuck it.
It's nice to be writing again, and it's nice to have some concrete perspective that my life is heading in a better direction. I've lost 9 pounds, an inch and a half off my waist, three inches off my hips, and most importantly, I've lost that heavy nasty feeling in my chest that I can barely remember anymore. I think I'll keep talking to myself. It's going well.
Thanks, Kristen.
Alchemy
Each syllable of my polished rambling starts as a golden wisp.
A hope, a dream, a shadow on the wall that is both nothing and everything.
The intangible thoughts rendezvous in my heart before they turn into a gas. A smoke, a breeze, an element that holds the air of my feelings. It travels up into my voice box and is pulled and twisted and mutilated by the vibrations of my throat as it quivers at the feel of you.
It is a compound. It is a mixture of all I want to say and all my body knows not to let me.
It is the liquid in my mouth that whitewashes itself and makes it the reflection on a pond. The shimmering mirror that is neither cloudy nor clear.
It is the truth but only as it allows itself to be seen. It is in the eyes of the beholder.
It is a solid. A weight at the tip of my tongue that drops from my lip as a thousand tonnes of iron.
It is a memory. It is a truth and a corrupted dream. It is a solid that I envision as a sound. A resounding dream in my ears that is nothing like the wisp in my chest.
That I could cut myself open and have you see these syllables as they should really appear.
It is a lie. This remnant of a dream is nothing but the shadow of a lie.
Hello world! I'm Derek (left), and my associate is Robert Z. Nom. We're doing a bit of travel this year, so I've started this blog to organise and share our experiences. You can follow us via Tumblr/RSS, and comments are always welcome. Hope we all have fun...!
You know...
Sometimes I wish my goals and mind were simple. That way finding guys could be as simple as finding that single trait that keeps me pleased: a big dick, hot body, money, popularity? Or that I could be content with becoming a mediocre person with remedial knowledge of the world and simply existing in my routine until my time is up.
...nah. ^_^
In other news, this is going to be a beautiful fucking day. BEAUTIFUL.
ps. I just saw a redbird outside my window, through the branches of a tree, with the perfect scenery and lighting. I need a camera. :/