I can birth the story but when I do, it takes on a life of its own.
I can scribble my true feelings onto paper but now it’s more than a poem.
I can live and take my bed up here and still have it not be my home.
I can have friends for life but really still be alone
I can have a heart of flesh but really have a heart of stone
I can pretend to not be affected but still be prone
I can write you a poem on your birthday, written in prose
I sit in my bed, not knowing what words to type. What lines to scribble on the page. My ink runs dry.
My heart feels heavy. I’m tense. I want to cry but at the same time I’m feeling hopeful and there’s an underlying sense of peace.
This one is different. It’s about the pain and suffering in the world and everything we put ourselves through.
You would never imagine some of the things people have to go through and yet we’re surviving every day.
I’ve never felt like my life was in danger but I fight a battle too. Internally. These people are fighting an external battle.
I wonder if we could all put our weapons down one day. If we could all surrender. Raise that white flag…
Let’s give up on trying to punish each other. Let’s give up on being judge, jury, and executioner to our fellow man.
I’ve been thinking, and that thinking is that if we do anything important in this life it’s that we love one another.
I know it sounds like something on a Hallmark card but it really is the antidote to the poison that has so infected this world we live in every day.
I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not that I feel so heavily for other people. Maybe it’s a burden and maybe life would be easier if I just didn’t care what happened one way or the other. But I do. I care what happens. Give me the chance to do the right thing and not just for goodness’ sake but because I want to do the right thing.
Allow me to choose between love and hate and I will choose love every time. Allow me to choose the path of animosity or forgiveness and I rather live and let die.
Again, my heart is sore and I don’t quite know where that leaves me. Without love, none of us can keep on living. We may think we’re living but really, we’re dead inside.
A friend of mine told me to write freely tonight so here I am.
I hope my words can carry me farther than my imagination can. I hope that these words are like a song that my trapped cage bird soul sings. This is my gospel and its only mine.
Forever.
Do you remember waking up early Saturday morning and flipping to VH1 or MTV to maybe catch a glimpse of your favorite music video? Remember coming home from school and catching the “Top 20 Countdown”?
This guy here does.
They were simpler times back then. Times when music videos weren’t ready to stream at a moment’s notice.
I remember watching entire countdowns from number 20 to number one just hoping that my favorite song would be in there somewhere. I remember 106&Park everyday after school. These countdown shows were also a way to discover new music and to find out what was really hot in the music world. Sometimes they would premiere a brand new artist and it would be exciting.
I’ve never gotten over that. I still love music videos. I think most people do. But I pay special attention to them, the direction, use of animations and colors in the video. Sometimes I like to recreate that “countdown feel” by making a playlist on YouTube or letting the algorithm autoplay songs.
Still it’s not the same as watching a countdown anxiously for your favorite videos in between commercial breaks and finding new songs to go and hurriedly download onto your MP3 player.
I guess I’m just feeling nostalgic but I think there was something so pure about how we discovered music in those days. Not to say I’m not thankful for all the advances we’ve made thus far.
Do you have any special memories about watching countdowns on TV? Let us all know, we’d love to hear from you.
Remember the good ole days of burned CDs and mixtapes on cassette? This one here does. It’s crazy how the new generation doesn’t remember these things and God I feel old for saying that but it really is a blast from the past, you know?
I remember when I asked a friend of mine to burn a CD for me for the first time so I could play it in the car. I gave him a list but he managed to put in a few pleasant surprises in there that really made me happy. It was a special feeling. Then I learned how to do it myself and everyone got CDs.
The way we share music has changed. Barely anyone has the time anymore to just check out some music you send them. The music scene is saturated right now so we have too many options and also, there are just way too many distractions online. With a video tempting you to click it with a clickbait title or a juicy social media thread; we’ve spread ourselves thin.
Nowadays we just pay a subscription fee and we can have unlimited downloads. I’m guilty myself of downloading music I’m never going to listen to. Whereas in the past we had to scour a file sharing site for the best quality upload so we could download it onto our MP3 player and risk getting a virus infection on our computer.
Mixtapes used to be personal. They had your name on it, they were your signature. You got the chance to be a curator, or a DJ. A tastemaker. And mixtapes came with their own titles like “music to listen to when you’re sad” or “music that makes you dance.” It was almost like the art of making a playlist as where if you had one skippable track on the whole thing then it was a dud. It’s crazy how romantic it seems now looking in hindsight.
I’m not saying I don’t like the advantage of having access to hundreds of thousands of songs in great qualify readily available. I just miss the times where we paid special close attention to the details. Where we tried to create music for an occasion. For the right moment. Music pairs well with experiences as they imprint memories in your head that last a lifetime.
All I’m saying is that if someone wanted to send me a mixtape titled “songs that make me think of your beautiful face,” I wouldn’t be mad.
But just kidding.
You’re so cold.
You and the winter are meant for each other.
My presence doesn’t seem to impact you in the slightest.
Do you even care about me at all?
I wonder.
Once I was your world but now that we’ve grown older it seems you’ve found another world to live in.
One I’m not invited to.
I want to appear stoic. It doesn’t affect me at all.
The truth is, it does.
When I’m around I feel like a +1.
To a party I was never invited to.
You are cruel but it seems you are okay with that. As long as you get to continue living in your bubble.
It’s okay.
Life is so beautiful these days. Something like this will not break me.
I won’t carry the pain.
I’ll set out…
To create a world of my own.
Artistic Apathy 