The Song

This Poem was inspired by a song I was listening to by Nine Inch Nails called La Mer. When I was listening to it I had this really excited, and comforting feeling that something good was about to happen. It made me relate to all these different sensations that I feel at certain points in my life, and it was like this song was pulling so many beautiful things forward in my mind.

It’s a song that makes you think of high school,
But this high school takes place at midnight.
In the middle of a suburban road, surrounded by a cluster of houses.
The high school that chills you pleasantly, and makes you think of all the concerts you’ve been to and the sea of yelling you witnessed there.
It’s dark, but not scary, more like the deepest, richest blue imaginable.
It calms you down, while making you laugh a little.
And you feel like the light of your soul is projected from your torso to the skies above.
It sparkles and shimmers in the reflections of your eyes, as it soars to the total zenith.
It erupts in the sky like a firework, at it rains down on you with a feeling of anticipation.
It whispers, “more to come” in your left ear
And in the right it says, “your going to be so excited.”
You are shivering of course, and trembling, as though the very air is tickling,
As though your body is a tongue and it is feeling the full effects of four packets of pop rocks you just dumped on it.
It’s weird, but the kind of weird you want.
The weird that makes you ask for more.
The weird that makes you ask, “what next?”
If it were a salesman you’d have bought a dozen time-shares by now, and already in process of getting one more.
Ironic, because it’s not selling you anything, it’s just telling you flat out…
Here have it!
It wants to give you more, it wants to tickle you and make you smile.
It is so generous that if it could, it would bury you in music.
And you would die of a laughing fit.
Why laugh? Because it’s just too simple, and therefore too ridiculous.
It makes you ask, “why didn’t I see this before, and will I see it again soon?”
It fades now, its almost gone like the smirk after a good joke.
You can still feel it in your brain, and it still feels warm, still alive just resting.
You’ll wake it up one day, by surprise of course.
You’ll wake it up with the right series of buttons:
At a bus stop after you’ve had a few, and are listening to crickets, and the wind playing with the trees.
Or, when you walk to music and strut just a little because you’re just awesome enough to get away with it, because you don’t take it to seriously.
Or, when you are driving in the country alone at night with all four windows open, and there is a cool breeze with a mixture of humidity.
It usually happens at night, the peculiar always happens at night, and that’s why I will sit up sometimes and wait for it, to tell me a story I haven’t heard, or hear it laugh at me when I didn’t get the riddle.
But I always feel satisfied, like an ice cream cone to a scraped knee.
And I always thank it, by smiling a little harder every time it visits.

This poem was inspired by a really terrible couple of weeks I had at school that was on the verge of ruining my life, and I am not being over dramatic, by shifting my view point to a much more bleak, sad existence thankfully something intervened before real lasting damage could have been done to my hopes for existence.


Chocolate memories


I found it on the cold granite counter top in the kitchen
Lit by what sounds like insect buzzing,
The warm chocolate memory.
It has taken me to the northern most part of Africa
Where the air smells of cumin,
And where you can find the greatest mint tea in the world.
It was a jubilation of taste and time.

But that was a week ago.
Right now I sit in awkward positions
In uncomfortable chairs
Listening to sages speak about life
And not in a friendly way either.
The room is made of gray bricks and concrete bars,
The words sound like turpentine to magnificent canvases,
And I feel as though my heart is beating these poisonous ideas through my system.
Slowly opening the door from these dark perspectives
I see blue light through squinted eyes,
And feel icy
But the glorious sun is there to warm me.
And the elegant trees are there to charm me.
And the funny people who walk around alarm me.
They don’t know the world I was just living in
Just several seconds ago.
But to me it now seems like an unfunny joke.

Skipping ahead to that night I learn
About the end of the Universe.
And the familiar poison has crept back in
No sun, nor trees, nor people can detox me now!
I am withering internally.
The last bit of purpose has been pulled from
The grasping hands of my soul.
My soul is now playing with his hands anxiously
Because they’ve never been so empty.
I try to console him
Offer him pretty diamond figurines that
Are essentially useless but enchanting.
But they turn to sand in his hands
And slip through the gaps in his fingers.

In the car, I found I was beside myself
I was driving yet also in the passenger seat,
While my soul sulked in the back.
I looked at the world through car windows
And found that I was just seeing the windows themselves.
There was nothing behind them.
The joyous, yellow countryside’s,
The solemn, purple mountain ranges,
The capricious, blue seas,
All of it was just hollow images
Displayed in a peculiar frame.
My dreams, thoughts, and feelings,
Only an interpretation of triviality.
The nagging voice of the question
Which forever annoyed me
Was missed dearly
And I would spend the rest of my life
Trying to find it pestering me once more.
For I never realized how much I loved that voice,
Until it refuse to speak to me.

Through the doorway of my stupid house
Which always use to welcome me,
But now ignores me as though
I some obnoxious smarty-pants,
I throw my shoes and jacket where I like,
Because no one is watching anyways.
I enter the dark kitchen that’s always been chilly
And only cozy when occupied by others.
Thankfully there is always someone in there,
But not tonight,
But I am of ice anyways so whatever.

Still, there is something strange
And elusive, it almost feels like the question is in the room.
I think she’s sleeping in a kitchen chair, and I can’t see her just yet.
I am still chilled in the dark.
But I feel her in the very air I know she’s in the room.
And there she was!
Not the question but the universe!
She had hearty beam and loving gesture.
She offered me a chocolate memory,
And I found myself in the Northern most part of Africa,
Sipping the world greatest mint tea in tiny glasses,
And sniffing the spicy cumin air,
While shop owners haggle their wares.
Back in the kitchen that now felt like Christmas,
She rubbed my back consolingly, hugged me tightly, and kissed my forehead.
She elegantly pointed to kitchen corner
Where the question was sleeping.
I could see her clearly
With light from the moon
That was romantically close.
My soul leaped 10 feet in the air
Ran over to her
And shook her almost violently.
To which the question exclaimed to him
In that familiar sagely crone voice of hers,
Loudly and resonating.
Of course this frustrated him
But he was glad to know they both were on speaking terms
And he looked down to find
His purpose sewed to his feet.

The universe invited the question
Through chocolate memories,
Which is something I can never forget.