In an office I was waiting

and saw the expected

a glimpse

a speck

the smallest crack of another framework

curiously i pondered

what does he do,when moved out of view

what does he think

or say

or do

is he just an average suit passing by

not expecting...one would ponder just for a moment

what does he do when moved out of view

what does he think ,or say,or do?

We're here,

You're there,

We're out of sight,

You're a fright.

Get used to it.

Oh. I didn't see you there.

You're not from around here, you say?

Okay, I'll show you around.

Here we have the girls.

Why are they in glass cases, you ask.

Well, they're put on display, of course.

The world says they loves them.

"Ladies first,"

"Hold the door,"

"Let her cut the line."

This point of view isn't mine.

Girls are strong enough not to need special privileges,

Although it's nice and sometimes we want it,

All we're trying to do is fit in.

We can't love ourselves too much, see?

Once the caste system kicks in, the self-lovers that secretly hate themselves are at the top.

The self-loathers who once loved themselves fall below.

You wouldn't know.

You don't live here, you say.

Then we get to the boys in cages, forced to live a certain way.

"Bro, don't be gay,"

"You have to act like us,"

"Don't do that, don't like this thing, or else your face will pay."

Speaking of all this, why are you still here today?

You don't belong,

Be on your way.

Society thinks you shouldn't stay.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Welcome to Society: this one isn't my poem, I just thought you would like it.

"Welcome to society,

We hope you enjoy your stay,

And please feel free to be yourself,

As long as it's in the right way,

Make sure you love your body,

Not too much or we'll tear you down,

We'll bully you for smiling,

And then wonder why you frown,

We'll tell you that you're worthless,

That you shouldn't make a sound,

And then cry with all the others,

As you're buried in the ground,

You can fall in love with anyone,

As long as it's who we choose,

And we'll let you have your opinions,

But please shape them to our views,

Welcome to society,

We promise that we won't deceive,

And one more rule now that you're here,

There's no way you can leave."

- e.h.

this chair is uncomfortable and it’s so muggy i can’t breathe.

my beer too flat to taste good and too weak to feel good.

the cigarettes take the edge off of these thoughts a little

but dull knives still cut, and anxiety is always cheaper than cigarettes.

this is the first time i’ve put this much effort and honesty into writing about something important to me without it being a response to something depressing or fucked up happening to me.

this time, it’s a different kind of sad.

(is what i am telling myself at least, hah)

it’s subtle; mostly just a lonely disappointment in myself. no more, no less.

mahler drags me into himself

i close my eyes and die for a while;

cease existing, cease thinking,

crescendos and joy are all that exist.

bach educates without you even realizing it

you forget about everything else as you listen;

how can you not?

counterpoint so elegant and complex

each time you hear a particular song may as well be a new composition

but the same perfection is always there.

chopin just makes me feel.

overwhelmed with beauty, horror, tension?

i have no idea if i am even happy or sad at times.

but especially the rare moments in his pieces

the ones when you hear, and can almost feel, the anger in his dissonance

i’m shaking, i’m smiling, i’m crying

i’m dying once more yet really living for the first time.

bits of rapture and fleeting emotions;

humanity at both it’s best and worst.

and each one allows me to lose myself again.

i lose myself in their passion, their convictions,

i lose myself exactly as they want me to.

and it is no less wonderful; the same escape i crave.

even amateur authors have these moments of genius

prose posts, local rock shows, college zines,

even the scribbled sharpie of someone who, for no apparent reason,

ended up leaving fragments of their soul

all on the same bathroom walls where

“call 555-FUCK for a good time”

is commonly the highest quality of work,

because art is different.

art exists when and where it wants to.

hell, not even the artist has any say about that.

art is the science of beauty.

art is beauty, period.

and art is my addiction

one that can’t be replaced by any others;

and i have tried, believe me.

art is also the greatest irony in my life.

when people ask what i want to do

i say “i don’t know” or make up a quick lie and say

be an astronaut, maybe a doctor,

anything pragmatic or expected.

anything normal.

but i fucking hate normal.

i don’t want to live my days empty.

i don’t want to be kept awake at night by that same empty.

i don’t want to die with this hole in me.

i don’t want to be a part of that lie anymore.

i don’t want my entire life to be neat and tidy.

my existence amounting to some generic paragraph;

an obituary in some newspaper i’ve never heard of before.

i don’t want a stranger to know me better than i ever knew myself.

i know what i want out of my life,

i want to make beautiful things with these hands of mine.

i don’t care about fame or fortune or some fucking award to validate my existence.

i only care about selfish things.

i only care that i alone made that beautiful fucking thing.

my work is the reason it is beautiful,

and without me it wouldn’t even exist.

i don’t even care what it is

a violin solo that makes your emotions throb uncomfortably

a poignant line; breaking you just as hard hearing it

as it broke me to compose it.

a pain that hurts oh so well.

maybe a poem stained

with the parts of my personality, the blood and guts of emotion

with cheap smudges from my home inkjet printer

with tears from you feeling what i feel,

a reality

a connection

an affair

that can only exist in that connection between author and reader

so i try.

i try until my hands bleed.

i try until my wallet is as empty as the bottle next to me.

i try and try and try until.

because i am still trying, and that won’t change.

i learn words upon words;

enough to write a thesaurus,

but not enough to write.

in fact, the more i learned

the more i tried to better myself

the worse i felt.

here’s a joke with me as the punchline:

the only thing that bigger words actually made expanded?

the hole i’ve been trying to fill this entire time.

the elucidation of realizing I now write shittier.

a didactic education about learning nothing in the end.

the dichotomy between who i want to be and what i actually am.

synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, just pride in sin.

so i taught myself music theory

chords, counterpoint rules, cadences.

suspensions, tritones, and of course how A4=440Hz.

submitting myself to dominant 7th’s

pretending to be a major composer.

but leaving out the “failure of a”

which was the only part of it that had any truth at all.

five words of truth is what i got

three extra!

even though i only wanted two.

i did get the “truth” part free there as well.

i can’t be sad really.

it’s not like i deserve to be special.

no one deserves anything they haven’t earned.

so i am doing my best to convince myself

it’s just a bit of disappointment.

a lot of people can’t effortlessly create

perfection out of a pen and some paper

the music of mediocrity

the prose of pretending

the story-lines of the shallow

the work of wasting time

a completed caricature of complete crap.

but even from these dead, empty, flat pieces of trash

i did learn that flats mean something important

flats you see, are what make major chords

into minor achievements, and as you add more flats

they finally evolve into diminished people such as i;

rationalizing insanity our only way to keep any sort of sanity at all.

sins are subjective

so maybe if i pretend hard enough to be a poet

if i exaggerate just the right amount of my empty words

i can turn my mediocrity into magnificence!

into something that for once

lets me feel satisfied

something that for once

saves me from that nostalgic sickness

when you surrender to shame.

so keep writing

keep singing

keep composing

keep rapping

keep humming, laughing, dancing, drawing,

painting, acting, sculpting, building, programming,

and any and everything else i forgot.

keep fucking.

keep fighting.

and fuck everyone who tell you otherwise.

that’s what it means to be an artist.

i may not make beautiful shit right now.

but fuck yeah i will keep trying until i die.

i may spend my whole life failing to make beauty

but then i have spent it chasing something important to me.

a person who is passionate enough about something

to spend his entire life chasing that motherfucker

what the fuck can be more beautiful than that?

because remember;

art is beauty, after all.

Intricate vessels we build,

filled with frozen emotion,

broken inside and chilled,

gilded in iced commotion.

Notions of pain and sadness;

badness shattered to frosting,

accosting anguished madness,

caddiness that is exhausting.

Haunting bits of frigid shards,

yards of numbness throttled,

cobbled with undesired cards,

guards for what we’ve bottled.

Walking to and fro,

Ignoring our neighbors,

Treating everyone like a criminal until proven otherwise,

Trusting in lies,

Telling lies,

Being hypocritical at all times;

Slaving away for a broken system,

Still having hope in the lies we're told,

And in the lies we believe,

Not wanting to see the truth,

For this truth hurts too much;

Living in fear,

Of terrorism,

Of mugging,

Of robbery,

Of everyone and anything,

Not trusting any,

Not even the ones we know best;

Still believing that They know what's best for us,

Even though their greed and lust for power and control,

Strip of us of all that makes us what we are,

Saying it's for our own good,

And foolishly we believe the lie,

For to reject one lie is to reject them all,

And that would mean seeing the truth;

And so we're caught in an endless cycle,

Of free and slaves,

Open minded and controlled,

Never knowing that the real problem isn't them,

Rather it is us:

Because we don't want to see the truth.

- Michael Hall

A rigid square of expectations

A half-heartedly given education

Conforming to the population

Held back by the limitations

You've broken the square and people stare

You've found your passion and become aware

That people today are hardly there

And that people today are never fair

They've beaten you down for not conforming

As if they want to make you a warning

This is what you get for not performing

Now they prepare you for the reforming

You try again and try in vain

Your words fall on deaf ears just the same

They want nothing to do with what's in your brain

Ignorance is the only way they can stay sane

Finally you give up; you're finally done

Your rebellion ended before it begun

Even though all it takes is a small number of one

The pressure is what made you come undone

A rigid square of expectations

A half-heartedly given education

Conforming to the population

Held back by the limitations

We sit here feeling safe and being told we are free

When really, the big evil thing is the "freedom" we are told we have and the ruling society

We can't understand that this is the truth

Not everything is perfect

Not everyone is you

We cannot be safe when everyone is covering up their most precious lies

They only want things that benefit them, even if it hurts your brother or mother during the night

You might not see

It might not be true

But when I think of society

I think of a dead me and you

From the peasantry to royalty

a means of defining humans, separately

From brave combatants to the tents generals inhabit

ah yes, society continues to manage.

From a spot on concrete to the most isolated suite

All of those that continue to starve, and those with too much to eat

Those that are forced to realize harsh realities indeed

while the others maneuver through it like zombies.

Castles adorned with most impregnable walls

Gates that raise with the might of owned slaves

Attacked by those with less resource and more balls

To risk life of free and slaved man, for the stores and staves

Decadent towers scratching at the pearly gates themselves

made in glass and steel, but keeping population inside, the window from hell?

park benches where men un-bathed find rest from weary days

a world to behold, but no power to make it stay

Men, myths, legends, and martyrs all hoping everyone can coincide

but there’s no peace when one can in barters, change tide

Truly the struggle is present in some form or another

but those at the top believe no one matches their work, and those at the bottom put in the work they believe can’t be furthered.

All we really dream of is freedom from someone’s/p.; b rule

all we really fear is that the next up will be more cruel

all we can really hope for is being happy when we leave

unfortunately some want to watch the world bleed.