I have recently started decluttering and clearing out old boxes that had been stored and happened upon an old notebook of sketches and scribbles from long ago. A buddy of mine (we will call him B) and I used to sit atop the roof of his rental and write whatever came to us. Back then, I had dedicated a decent amount of time to writing poetry. There was a freedom in putting pen to paper and it also aided in calming the restlessness of being a young adult, trying to navigate life. That old notebook would go with me where ever I went and when inspiration would hit, I'd jot down the thought and rehash it at a later date. At the time, I had no idea how these pieces, written so long ago and before I had experienced real struggle, would come back to meet me on the road that I am currently travelling.
"When you dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change. The devil changes you." - Amanda Hocking
A poem, written circa 1999.
The Dance
I lay my weary head upon a soft retreat.
The dance begins.
The devil gnashes his teeth atop my left shoulder,
while God rests patiently upon the right.
Sad man, tired man,
What is your plan?
To sleep me away
Until you wake again?
Your mind is water,
as you drown in the deep.
And you know, as well as I,
there is a means to an end
beneath where you sleep.
Pay no mind to his ramblings!
His words are no more than the blowing of a chilled wind.
I'm tired.
Rest child.
I drift into darkness,
but still hear his call.
Alone in a dream,
I rest but still fall.
We twist, we turn,
our thoughts intertwine,
trapped in slumber,
for brief moments in time.
We awake and prepare,
for the next day begins.
Only to dance,
upon the sunlight,
ending again.
How does a seemingly random thought, born approximately twenty-five years ago, hold so much weight today? I wrote this piece when life was simple and drama free. The only real pain I had experienced was the passing of my grandfather in 1992. It's odd, to me, how life comes full circle.
Allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite artists, Ren Gill.
As with most of my posts, I will leave you with a musical piece, but be warned, there is some vulgarity and the lyrical content is intense, in my opinion. I implore you to listen to the entire song, especially the last minute and a half. Ren speaks truth and does not hold his tongue. Keep "The devil on one shoulder and God on the other" in mind while taking this song in. It is worth your time and I do hope you enjoy. It fits perfectly with the subject matter.
PSA: I skipped the letter "C" because I am still working through it but will post when finished.
In society today, violence is all around us. We are inundated with it. We see it in the morning AND evening news. It is glorified in Hollywood and at times, we see it in front of our very eyes. We breathe it in like oxygen. The boundaries between information and fascination have blurred. It is big money and it has become a contest. Push the gore further, be more and more deranged. Make it stick in peoples crawl. Why is society in love with bloodshed and what affect does it have on our thinking?
"No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded." - Margaret Mead
1984. "One, two, Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, better stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again."
I was ten years old and the chant above was burned into my memory. My mind was processing information at an alarming rate but the entries were normal fodder for my age at the time. Every single image that I consumed was locked away and stored in my subconscious. I was innocent. I was protected and sheltered. I was safe. I did not know what violence was. Life revolved around Smurfs and Pound Puppies, Gleaming the Cube and racing BMX. Horror was reserved for late night viewing and for grownups only. "A Nightmare" was my introduction to horror and I didn't like it, but liked it at the same time. As the years passed, I had watched the classics and didn't mind but as the violence intensified and the realism evolved, I began to drift away from the genre, only catching pieces of a few here and there. My thought process went from "It's harmless viewing." to "How do people come up with these ideas?" and I concluded that I didn't want to know.
My penchant for obsessive thinking completely shifted this paradigm. Having intrusive thinking is difficult to navigate and while in the midst of a negative cycle, you have difficulty separating fiction from fact. The idea of physically harming someone makes me ill and when I obsessed about the possibility, it was gut wrenching. In my experience, time (too much of it) would pass and the symptoms subsided, but it didn't take much to trigger another response. Through trial (and a bunch of error) I realized that violence, in any form, was a trigger and needed to be removed completely.
"How do people come up with these ideas?"
I used to sigh in defiance when my father would express his opinion about the fall of society, but even in my small act of rebellion, I heard his words. I am unwilling to admit it, but I am starting to align myself with his believes and until people realize that drastic change is necessary, we will continue to witness violence and it will only escalate further as time passes. I do not have answers on what needs to be done but know that it will only get worse. Mass shootings, unheard of in my teens, are now commonplace and the media loves to drown us with the who's and why's. This only fuels the desire for those with evil intentions. It is no longer a question of if it will happen again, but when? Some will blame video games and others blame Hollywood but I place blame solely on the individuals that carry out the act. Mental illness is real and some hide behind it's vale. I was one of those types but there comes a time when you need to slip each leg into your jeans and work through the issue. It took the death of a loved one and the loss of another to make me realize that true happiness is hard work and just because your lot in life is difficult, there is no excuse to give up, commit criminal acts and God forbid, take another's life.
Music cures my restlessness and I incorporate it in life daily. I allow the words to wrap around my mind but it does not encourage what I do. It is an escape from the noise surrounding me. I like edgy and I gravitate toward musicians that are not afraid to admit and discuss struggle. I have an internal soundtrack of hundreds of thousands of songs and when I write, some of these pieces remind me of the subject matter.
Be warned, the song below is violent but I am sharing it because it fits the topic of this entry. I do not spew vulgarity on The Hobbit but the musical entries may.
