writing – sofsea

coffeehouse cynics

November 30, 2015November 29, 2015 sofseaLeave a comment

we are coffeehouse cynics/too righteous, too rigid to believe

Something short and strange inspired by this song

We fill ourselves up with money, with hatred, with materialistic dreams of grandeur and disposable people. We fill ourselves up with things others have lost, and things which cannot be found. We hide ourselves away inside of this idea of happiness, this sacred, golden beauty, this force-fed aspiration for greatness. It is not greatness, this monstrous dream. It is not greatness. It is a disgusting, grotesque poison. We want to fill ourselves up with the poison of self-hatred, of unforgiving stupidity.

I miss you, did you know that? I miss the ravenous, needy way you drank your coffee, black, dark roast, as if it was going to fix the emptiness that had caved into itself, inside of you. I miss your childish delight, your wide, crooked grin, the one that has haunted my dreams for the past few months. I miss your goodness, because good god, you had a ridiculous amount of it. You just forgot how to find it. I do not place blame on you, for that shortsighted insecurity, for that unprecedented ability you had to forget every good thing about you.

There you go, there it is, that truth you always wanted from me. I am so sorry I never had the decency, the generosity, to willingly give it to you. I wish, more than anything, that I had not been as so obliviously selfish as I was. What a greedy, egregious fool I was, to ever be anything but less than devoted to making you feel okay again. You were everything, the world, the universe, the whole damned galaxy somehow meshed into this dissonant, but inconceivably beautiful, mess of a human being. You tired angel. I love you. I hope you do see that now. I love you and I wish I could have given into that.

I wish I could have said it.

We were fools. We were idiotic, restless children, bones nearly trembling with emptiness, with this exhausted eagerness to see, to live, to prosper and to embrace each other, but we never did. We went too far, we lost our vision in this blinding, blinding darkness. I am so sorry. We were screwed from the beginning, though. Don’t you see that? What other possibility was there, other than this hellish, crumbling palace we built for ourselves, than to come crashing to the ground?

I found your tee shirt, the other day, resting plaintively at the bottom of my closet. Good god, love, you should’ve seen how I trembled, how I collapsed onto my carpet and sobbed, endlessly, bitterly, into that fucking tee shirt. That tee shirt is you, really. Coffee stained, faded cream, and this strange scent of cinnamon and cigarette smoke. You perfect, damn perfect, human.

God. How did we lose this, my love? How did we lose ourselves in this neverending darkness? How did we not see the end of it? There must be an opening at the end of the tunnel. There has to be.

You must have seen it, did you not? Have you finally found that incomprehensible surge of light? Have you found yourself, finally, in death? Have you found what you were searching for?

God knows I haven’t, but goodness, I hope you have.

Home.

September 15, 2015 sofseaLeave a comment

here is a poem I recently wrote, out of quite a passionate dissonance of emotions. if you’d like to read more, head over here. thank you.

I am in love with someone who is unaware
of any aspect of my existence

how egregious this pain seems
I am unremarkable in my sufferings
but I miss him all the same

sleepless, hollow nights
there lies an ache
inside of me
in my stomach,
my bones and my ribs,
aching without apology
without a cure

with the weight
of knowledge that you
will never see me
the way that I see you

or love me
as if I’m not made of
paper.

the thing is
you are unequivocally
most certainly
and unbearably
my home

but I
don’t know
if you can build a home
from a stack of cards

and I don’t know
if you can build a home
inside words never dedicated to you.

A Long Time Ago

February 14, 2015February 16, 2015 sofseaLeave a comment

Middle school was a tempestuous time for me. I know how naive that does sound, because all it was was middle school, a part of life that should be easy to forget, a period of time that that is ubiquitously painful for every awkward preteen, and I do not have such a right to claim that it had a greater effect on me than anyone else. I know that it was simply middle school, trust me, I sincerely do know this. Yet I cannot help but reflect upon those three, quite tragic, years with inordinate penitence. Can anyone help what they possess pain for? Can we ever truly move past our mistakes, and most unforgettable wrongdoings? I do not believe that we can simply “let go” of whatever it is that is ensnaring us in our pasts, notwithstanding the countless songs (cough cough, Frozen) and culture preaching for us to let go of our mistakes, let go of who it is we used to so honestly be, and move the hell on. And perhaps this is a personal feeling, but I do not want to let go of who I used to be. Quite bluntly, for me, who I used to be is not a part of me that I can just so easily and regardlessly dismiss away, banish from myself. I can’t. I wish I thought that I was even able to accomplish such a feat, but I am not a person who likes to lie to myself. And so I know that I will never truly forget who I used to be. Over time, though, I’ve come rather slowly to realize that perhaps that isn’t such a terrible thing after all. Maybe our endurance of ourselves is a sign of strength, not loss, not weakness.

There are so many people who I have lost over the past few years, not in the literal meaning as in the terms of tragedy such as death, but there are losses that hurt just as horribly. And believe me, I have felt these losses all too prominently over the past few years. I never imagined that I would ever hate anything about myself, but I do. I hate abundant aspects of myself, traits of my personality, darker thoughts that cross my mind repetitively, not simply because I have recognized these darknesses in myself instantly, but rather, I have learnt so much of my weaknesses because of what I have been through. In times of crisis, I understand myself better. I know how to anticipate my reactions to certain things.

That’s the thing. The past will never disappear and dissipate into thin fragments that are gone with the wind. That will never happen. I know this. And I know that sometimes, many times, we may want certain parts of ourselves to vanish without a second look. And this makes sense, when you look at it like that. But here’s the thing: why would we want to forget what made us us? All of the strenuous horrors that you may have faced in your life, all of the weak feelings you wish you could surrender to, they make you who you are. But at the same time, they do not define you.

The past does not disappear as it ends. However, the past also does not define who you are. Your present self is who you are, but your past self led you up to the present, didn’t it? Had you made one choice differently, your life could be irrevocably different. And that is somewhat frightening, but also somewhat relieving. What’s life without uncertainty? Why would you waste your entire life questioning the inevitable what ifs and instead question the right now? This is where you are, this is who you are, and every single thing that you have done in your life, every single moment that you chose to spend doing a certain something, have helped lead you to where you are now. And if where you are is not where you would like to be, well, you do have to let go of what you are unable to change. We needn’t burden ourselves with the past, but we also must accept our pasts, because they are the most unchangeable parts of ourselves and our lives.

I miss so many people, so many things that I could’ve, should’ve, would’ve done if I had the chance or choice now. But I don’t. I simply am not Marty from Back to the Future. The past is utterly irreversible. The past is gone, but the future can be whatever the hell you make it to be. Opportunities are rare but they are also present in this world if you can allow yourself to stop holding onto what holds you down. Do not let your past self shove you down. You are worth so much more than a few choices you made, a lost person, a heartbreak or a few. You’re worth trying. And god, this all sounds terribly cliche, and I generally despise cliches, but you know what? Right now, I know that I am using a cliche and I’m owning it. Too bad. It’s one that I believe we must all do at some point in our lives. We must accept our pasts, without them ruining our present.