Old Poems

Self exploration and more unimportant findings.

Since moving to this city ten years ago, I’ve moved seven times.

I recently got married, and my “spousey” and I have been able to hold down this nice apartment for the last two years. I’ve shed a lot of my belongings and successfully held off being attached to too many materials, save for my books and records. But my baseball cards, instruments, knickknacks, many clothes, and so on, I’ve lost through the many transitions from one bedroom to the next. One thing I’ve never parted with is my notebooks.

I was a prolific little writer when I was a teenager, with much angst and sadness to expel. A lot of this manifested as poetry, which I want to share today, after finally getting a chance to sort through the materials after catching COVID for the first time and being forced to stay in one place for over a week.

We’ll start with some experimental stuff I was working on in 2012, or freshman year of high school.

Without Me, I’m Just - October 22, 2012

“What do you want from your life?”, I was asked by the Sun,

Before I was able to respond I was hit with droplets of blood.

It was then that I realized my reality was fake

and that being in love with Jane was a lifelong fate.

Why is it that when I’m tempted to look her way,

I gather the courage and

she looks away.

I can’t help it, I woke up under these layers of skin

I tried and failed to cut it all off and let you in.

I really hate what I am and what I was

and in attempts to scrub it away,

I surfaced more scars and cuts.

I am so close to finding myself,

But darling, it’s possible I may need your help.

If I had the nerve to dream again, I would have the courage to finally

scream again. I’m moving forward, step by step

I’m just hoping you haven’t left.

You have the potential to run my world and ruin my life

The power to make my decision and curve the knife.

You could play with my hair and kiss my head. We could be something

and determine our end.

My love was sent from hundreds of miles away

But apparently you didn’t get the mail that day. Or

the next, or the last, or the one after that.

…

In the interest of some self analysis and vulnerability, ‘Jane’ was a girl who was actually named Jayne. I had a very real crush on her, and she’s a recurrent character in a lot of the poems from high school. As you can tell, my feelings were never materially reciprocated, though I fantasized about a life together for a significant period of my high school life.

We’ll continue with freshman year for a moment longer~

Candles & Cuts - undated, probably 2012

The scent of that candle brings back memories,

bullets being fired - little bullets sent to my mind

words written into my skin

pencil razors, paper skin

washing wounds was the worst

self destruction was my world, my life, me..

the razors are hidden

My mind snapped, the razors split the skin, a grunt

my nights.

Slowly the deputy brought me to the hospital

a short man named Trooper Hunter.

Hunted, my life ended, I wanted to see the dark

now I just see pale faces around me.

I am alive,

oh, I’m so fucked

I’m sorry guys!

…

As you can tell from other writing on this substack, I struggled with self harm as a youngster. This is a piece about the materials I associated with cutting myself. In freshman year I was brought to a mental hospital (discussed elsewhere) and the end here is a nod to that stay. Recently I recalled some of this with my therapist - that sensation and awareness that by failing to kill myself, I would be met with punishment and scorn, hence the ‘Hunted, my life ended…’ and ‘I am alive, oh, I’m so fucked, I’m sorry guys!' How are you supposed to respond to a child the hurts themselves but with a good grounding? ~

untitled - 2012

Being alone is the best friend in the world.

I’m so sick of constant frustration, and I can’t kick this constant contemplation

to end my life, so I’m stuck here sitting,

I hate my mind, make my ears stop ringing

I hate the fact that I can’t tell if I’m awake

I hate that no one asks if I’m OK.

And I hate the fact that my existence is a fucking mistake

Being alone is the worst friend in the world.

I’m so sick of constant frustration, I can’t kick this constant contemplation

to end my life, so I’m stuck here sitting,

I hate my mind, make my ears stop ringing

I hate the fact I’ve been to six houses in the last three days

I hate the fact that we don’t have a place to stay

I hate the fact that I’m broken in so many ways

Being alone is like tasting blood.

…

Freshman year of high school was the first time that my mom and I were meaningfully homeless. Growing up, we would spend different periods of my life with my grandfather, or my mom’s friends, or at my mom’s friend’s parents, but freshman year we had nowhere to go. I don’t remember all of the places. There was a period where we stayed with my uncle and his fiancé, but they lived about 45 minutes away from school, so it wasn’t ideal. There were nights where my mom would go to my uncles and I wouldn’t have anywhere to go because my plans fell through. Every time, a friend was able to pull through, but it was precarious. In the end, my mom was able to get another job and land us an apartment, the first place in my life that I felt safe. So the above is a piece about that lost-ness and insecurity, and tendency toward dissociation in those periods of crisis and tension.

The writing from 2013 is nothing worth posting. A lot of it was about love interests, feeling alone, and so on. After freshman year, I bare knuckled existence and hunkered down. I got a girlfriend from another school and sort of isolated myself. There was nothing special about these poems, and I was journaling a lot more.

In 2014, while a lot of this is the same, I think my writing had more of an appeal, despite its naturally depressing tone.

untitled - February 2014

how many times do i have to tell you i’m dying

i can’t tell my family because i hate all the crying

throw me in the sun, the only star i see shining

i’m haunted, i’m stupid, i’m nothing, i’m trying

there’s three people in my life who make it alright

there’s two people in my life who actually care about me, right?

well these are the people i pushed away last night

i’m empty, i’m stupid, i’m nothing, i’m fine.

…

Like many Gen Zers, I had a therapist suggest that I had Borderline Personality Disorder. It was a strange thing that I struggled with, and this piece gets to that a bit. I resented my friends and felt like they were using me for access to drugs and a place to do drugs, so I would often push them away; the same give-and-go rodeo was felt with my girlfriend, though she had no interest in drugs. I was also always upset when people didn’t come over, or didn’t follow through on expectations and desires that I had for them to come over, which I hadn’t expressed. A lot of the above and below toys with those themes. ~

because i am lonely - May 10, 2014

i was going to runaway tonight

but it felt too unsubstantial to just leave my house

so i decided i’d just kill myself,

but tomorrow’s mother’s day and that’s not fair.

i was going to break up with my girlfriend tonight,

but i have no reason to, and actually, i think i love her.

so i was just going to get drunk,

but tomorrow i have to go to a family breakfast.

i was going to take two xanax bars,

but i already ate half of one

so i was just going to go to matt’s house,

but his phone is still broken.

instead i went to work, my grandmother’s, Darnell’s, Naim’s, and now i’m home

none of those places made me happy, i am going nowhere.

…

I also began to experiment with drugs around this time. I always enjoyed benzos (Xanax, Klonopin, Valium), psychedelics, drinking, and smoking.

all my psychologists suck - September 19, 2014

now i’m just so sore

i can’t take it anymore

i want my head to explode

i want it to pour

rain and blood in buckets

yummy klonopin nuggets

6 mil to smile again

i hit a low, but fuck it.

nothing else matters

covered in laughter

i’m still pretty sad

but couldn’t be happier.

…

Friends of mine also started to mess around with drugs, and picked up some serious struggles. This would also become a consistent theme in my writing.

covert - September 29, 2014

i got worried about him when we didn’t talk for a couple of weeks.

we were best friends when we were growing up,

and we stopped being friends when we grew up

now whenever i hear his name, people say he’s hooked.

it worried me because we were best friends

how could he do this to himself, and everyone who loves him.

i’m not there, i haven’t been; i should have been, before anything.

he was my best friend, now he’s never in school

last i heard, he was in

a hospital bed.

covert pt. 2 - October 2, 2014

they sent him to rehab

and i can’t say how much i’ll miss him

but so far i miss him.

i should have talked to him the day he crashed his car.

when he drove me home i should have said something.

when Sue told me, i should have called him.

but i fucked up, he fucked up, and life’s fucked up.

nothing is going like we pictured

i’m selling drugs, he’s hooked on drugs

i miss my best friend

i’m terrified.

his mom was in our living room when i returned

telling my mom that Gaby broke up with him

when he crashed his car.

she must have been fed up, everyone’s fed up

and nothing is going like we pictured

when we would sit in his living room

playing games, watching television.

…

This was about my oldest friend. We were inseparable until freshman year when his mom moved them to a neighborhood a few miles away. Until then, we’d been just three blocks away from each other. He started doing heroin and things got bleak. On the bright side, he’s sober now and we chat occasionally.

i am so blue - November 2, 2014

she told me she was clean last night

she heard i have a huge dick

from a boy who stole my cellphone

and went through my photos.

but today she is hungover and

feels it necessary to go and look

for some heroin, she makes me so

depressed because she’s miserable

and now i’m miserable, and tired.

sweetheart, i must apologize because

i am a river, i am so blue.

but if i’m a river then you are

an ocean, i flow into your insides

and i crawl up and plummet then

disperse and fall apart,

then i’m gone.

you are my coffin, surrounding me

once a vein, i am now your blood

marrow in your bones, you find me

floating, flowing inside of you.

untitled - November 14, 2014

she won’t ask the reason that you bleed so much

she doesn’t look, it’s of no interest.

listen when she sings, it’s the only truth you’ll hear

all she wants is somebody to hold her.

she’s on the bags and trying her best to stop

another relapse and she tries again.

i believe in her

the coke she shot made her throw up last night

now she’s back to shooting dope

and hates water on her skin.

her mom’s on the street trying to feed her arm

and his mom’s in the hospital right now,

she overdosed on valium the other night

now she’s in a coma and they’re assuming brain damage.

there’s nothing to pick up, still she’s glued to the ground

she’ll be alright if she just lays in bed today.

…

Like my best friend, the girl that I lost my virginity to would get hooked on dope. Until I moved to this city, she was always an important part in my life, even though we stopped dating in freshman year. These last two pieces were about failing to comfort her and keep her safe, and those in our lives that were also struggling. There was always an odd responsibility I felt toward her, since when we broke up, I shut-in and she did the opposite. As we got older, she harbored a lot of resentment at my comparative success, i.e. graduating high school, going to community college.

As mentioned earlier, I myself enjoyed drugging and this caught up with me. I was arrested at 17. This is a reflection from the night of the arrest~

fate - December 19, 2014

sitting in the back of the cop car today

i began to reflect on the things that went wrong.

how ollie stunted me, how anna and i didn’t do lunch

how brandon wanted to smoke a third joint

how we almost left but decided not to

how my mom wasn’t at the store long enough

how nick was already with aman and ryan

how many people walked by our car.

i swallowed a double-sealed bag when i saw the cop car

sitting in the cell i felt the baggy scratchily shimmy down to my belly

the bars were bent, the seat was carved into

the handcuffs left marks on my wrist

the floor slanted into a drain.

all i could think about was how i ruined christmas…

the first day of christmas break and i lose

$520 in cash, dozens of klonopin, xanax, roxy and more

sitting in brandon’s car, running late to work,

to get sent home, slapped at home

all i wanted today was to see anna

it was fate and i will never get my way.

…

graveyard boy - December 26, 2014

i’ve been smoking in the graveyard

hiding from my old friends

here’s where i feel comfort

in the silent at the Miller family gravestone

under the ugly bare slumping tree

smoking every cigarette in my army jacket

picking at the scabs on my arms

scratching and tearing off, leaving skin in the dead grass.

he’s eaten four klonopin, i don’t think i could stand if he tried.

he’s not thinking straight

he’s thinking this is where he belongs

…

So, anyways. It took me a while to sort of find the will to continue. I graduated in January of 2015 and my mental health improved drastically. The last poem worth having here is one based on something that resembles hope. Many themes discussed above remain, but there is some discussion of the future for once, which demonstrates a marked change in my mindset.

so shitty / i wanna - February 19, 2015

i wanna join an band and play the sax

i wanna go to the beach and lie in the sand

i wanna crack a bunch of jokes and make you laugh

i wanna grow old and be a grown man

but fuck me and god damn

i wanna do everything i can’t.

i wanna do all the things that i won’t

i wanna fulfill every last hope

i wanna send jayne every fucking poem

i wanna go to joan’s and slit my throat

i wanna slather my blood on the door like a goat

but god damn fuck me it’s all a hoax

i wanna do everything but i’m just a ghost.

i wanna come over and hardly sleep

i wanna count the seconds between your heart beats

i wanna see if you can find a reason to leave

i wanna watch your body hum as your breathe

i wanna be there in every one of your dreams

god fucked me but damn this ruthless heat

i wanna be your everything but you’re everything that i need.